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Happy New Year 2012.
Open Source is going strong, and as predicted is going to much stronger in coming days. 2012 and onwards should see more and more adaptation of Open Source products, and competing with all major proprietary systems.

Here are a few Open Source Technologies to watch out for in the year 2012.

1. Hadoop

Big Data has really gone BIG this year. Hadoop and NoSQL are just about household names in the tech world.
Everyone is jumping on the big data bandwagon. Not just Web 2.0 type of companies like Facebook and Twitter, but 2012 will be the year that big data comes to the enterprise. All of this big data will drive more NoSQL in the cloud, in the enterprise and everywhere in between.

2. Andriod

Android is ranked as being the top mobile platform over the next 24 months. This open source platform based on Java and XML offers a much shorter learning curve, and this contributes to its popularity with IT professionals. iOS remains strong in the U.S. and other developed countries.

3. Alfresco, Drupal, Liferay

Open Source CMS continues to dominate the market.

2012 will see major market share being grabbed by the Open Source CMS systems such as Drupal, Alfresco, Liferay, Joomla!, DotNetNuke etc.

4. WordPress

WordPress’ meteoric rise is far from over. WordPress 3.3 just managed to release near the end of the year, and WordPress 3.4, 3.5 and 3.6 are likely to release in 2012. WordPress has tried to make it easier for developers to use the CMS with each release, and we can expect great things from it this coming year.

5. Google Chrome

Google Chrome has now surpassed Mozilla Firefox in usage and it is likely that it will keep growing. For good or bad Google is continuing to push the envelope of web applications. Native Client, which allows one to write code for web apps in native languages such as C++ is maturing and can greatly improve web app performance. Google’s Dart might also make it into the browser in some from in 2012.

6. HTML5, CSS3

A number of standards are emerging that make 2012 an interesting year for web standards. The Mouse Lock and GamePad APIs aim to improve the state of web games. As usual we will see a number of new standards make it into browsers, especially with the upcoming release of Internet Explorer 10, Firefox 10 to 18, Chrome 17 to 24.

CSS3 has added a number of new specifications; CSS3 Exclusions allow styling arbitrary shapes around which text can flow; CSS3 Regions allow text to flow between multiple isolated sections of a page; CSS3 Flexible Box make it easier to develop user interfaces; and CSS3 Paged media allows pagination for better access than scrolling on devices; and more.

7. jQuery, Node.js

If you’re a web developer it’s a given you’ve heard of jQuery. JQuery Mobile is a jQuery-based framework for developing websites that work well on mobile. The framework makes it easy to create good looking, touch-friendly websites for mobiles without even needing to touch JavaScript or CSS. It can automatically enhance your HTML site if you give it a few hints. jQuery Mobile had its first major 1.0 release just recently and 2012 should see more releases now that the basic stuff is done. Combined with Apache Callback above, it is a great tool for making simple web applications.

JavaScript being the only supported client-side web programming language has gained considerable popularity, such that not it is possible to write not only client side web applications, but using Node.js it can also be used for the server-side logic. Node.js allows the server-side of web applications / sites to be written in JavaScript, and runs on Google’s V8 JavaScript engine with added libraries to extend its functionality. With Microsoft’s support behind it, Node.js is now also available on Windows and even on Windows Azure, and more exciting developments are likely to lie in 2012.

8. OpenStack

While Amazon Web Services get increasingly popular, they are still a closed solution and not suitable if you want to run your own personal cloud. That is where OpenStack, an open alternative to Amazon, steps in. OpenStack lets you create your own cloud infrastructure and manage it like you would Amazon’s. You can also offer you cloud infrastructure to others, like Rackspace does. Currently it offers compute, storage and imaging solutions.

9. Ubuntu, Linux Mint

Ubuntu 12.04 will be an important release for a number of reasons. First, it’s the first long term release since their new desktop environment Unity, so significant work will go into it to stabilize and refine it. Secondly, it will be the first long term desktop release from Canonical to get a 5-year support period, up from 3 years. Canonical is also working on mobile / tablet versions of the OS, which should also see some activity in 2012.
Linux Mint 12 has already shown that it’s possible to have a good compromise between the old Gnome 2 and the new Gnome 3 user experience. Now they have gone their own way with their own replacement for Gnome Shell. As Gnome 3 matures and becomes more capable, it will be interesting to see the direction Mint takes. It has already attracted a large number of Ubuntu users who were unhappy with the new Ubuntu UI.

10. Apache Flex

Flex is Adobe’s solution to developing applications for the web, desktop and mobile using a declarative UI development language (MXML) and scripting language ActionScript 3. The content then runs in Flash or AIR. Adobe recently decided to shift development model from being driven by Adobe to one developed by the community under Apache.

2012 should be an interesting year for Flex, not only because it will be its first year outside Adobe, but also because Adobe plans to overhaul the compiler, and it is researching on making it possible to convert ActionScript code to JavaScript for making HTML projects.