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Is Commercialization Killing Open Source?
An anonymous reader writes "IBM, Sun, Novell, and Red Hat all have a very significant open source element to their businesses. In addition to these juggernauts, there is growing investment in various open source models. Will money flowing into open source destroy its roots? Mark Hinkle just posted an editorial asking the questions Is Commercialization Killing Open Source? in which he comments on 'opensville' and gives some actual investment data, and a lot of insight into the growing trend in 'open source commercialization'. Is there such a thing as 'too much money' when it comes to developing software?"
Is there such a thing as 'too much money' when it comes to developing software?"
Just like the movie industry, you're pushed to release sequels as frequently as possible even when you really don't have anything new or innovative to release.
God spoke to me.
Just like investment of capital ruined the roots of the automotive industry. However, cars are much cheaper now than they would have been being produced one by one in a garage. The roots of any industry or technique usually suck compared to results after the industry has been fully capitalized. So, yes it will probably ruin the roots, but its a good thing.
Among the many aspects of the Open/Free Source cultures is the essential characteristics of Choice and Free Will.
/. seem to love, beer, either Metaphorically or Analogously, Did the EXPLOSION of Micro-Breweries in the last decade kill off Beer?
As we all on
Or did it offer many people the chance to experiment and introduce new types and varieties of beer to an entirely new audience?
Sure, as the the Giant Commercial Software Shops have participated in the process, they have occasionally Big Footed their way through some issues.
Sure, as they have ponied up large numbers of developers and other resources to promote their vision of Open/Free Source, they have inflected the growth and adoption rates of Linux, et al.
But would anyone seriously suggest, for all the real difficulties this has caused, and will cause in the future, without the HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS that the Giants have poured into the world of Free/Open Source, that its adoption, growth and technological improvment would be anywhere near where it is now?????
They Pays Their Monies and They Takes Their Chances.....
I'd say we're all much better off with them, than without them. And those of us who want to work on porting LINUX or Java to our favorite Zilog 80 platform, can spend as much time as we chose to do so. Our own pet projects are, as always, up to to us.
As individual developers and contributors, we are as, "Free to Choose", as we have ever been.
Ten quid, she's so easy to blind. And not a word is spoken...
I agree as well. The last time I did any "real" OSS development was when I was a teenager. I wrote really crummy code back then and didn't make very many useful contributions. But I had a ton of ambition and a "do-good" attitude.
Now that I'm an adult and have a family to support I really wish I could get back into the game. I know I could really make a useful contribution. I'm am much more experienced, have vastly more knowledge and am thus in a much better position to contribute.
I just don't have the time anymore. Now I'm profit driven. My kids need to eat. The only way I see myself doing open source work is if I get paid for it. I wish I had more time to devote to hobbies but I spend 100% of my professional life sitting at a computer and so my hobby time is reserved for non-computer tasks.
So if companies can take people that are in my position and enable them to contribute to the community then that can only be a good thing.
In all this discussion of Big Business "Open Source" software let's tip our hats to the thousands of Debian Developers who help keep software FREE. Not just free in monetary terms, free of the stranglehold that big business can place on software development when they decide to move on to the next big thing.
I hope big business keep pumping money into worthwhile open source projects. I really hope they truly support free software. I'm smart enough to know that at least some of these players are only in it to foister some competition against the Microsoft camp and whether that is good enough for the community remains to be seen.
Moore's law is not a law. Theory, yes; Predictable trend, certainly; Law, no.
Open source products are making inroads in most vertical markets, deposing commercial product after commercial product. Their user base is soaring, their legitimacy is solidifying, their media presence is expanding. It's actively difficult to find servers that aren't open source.
Exactly what definition of "killing" are we working by, again?
StoneCypher is Full of BS
For open source to become more popular, money must flow in. The result is that some projects request donations to keep the project alive.
Now, I'll play devil's advocate for a second - would you prefer a version of Firefox that isn't up to modern standards (i.e. bloated, memory leaks, CPU hog, and won't render properly), or would you spend money to make it the best browser (i.e. lightning fast, lightweight, and perfect rendering)? I've considered allowing you to spend time to help the browser, but a project the size of Firefox isn't something that most programmers can jump into.