My conversation over B&B breakfast with a computer science college teacher spilled over into dialog with colleagues at Ashridge Business School (UK) today.
How does an open-source, sharing-based environment create interdependence and community?
How do the “walls” built in organizations (including those between people) to protect proprietary information impact collaborative performance?
How will we find the effective mix of open-source and proprietary to support a sustainable commercial and social future?
What do you think?
Nika
Well, there really are two kinds of open source software.
The first kind is corporate open source. The company built a
product to make money, but they release the source in order to
fight bugs, build trust, or something like that. The companies turn
profits by selling support and maintenance services. Most versions
of Linux fall under this model. The second kind is community
developed. No one is making any money, but lots of people and
organizations pitch in to build the software. The best example of
this is Firefox, or the Linux kernel. The first sort of open source
isn’t so much community building as PR building. I think the second
source is where one finds real community.