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Should Enterprise IT Give Back To Open Source?
snydeq writes "InfoWorld reports on the fight over open source 'leeches' — companies that use open source technology but don't give back to the open source community. While some view such organizations as a tragedy of the commons, others view the notion of 'freeloaders' as a relic of open source's Wild West era, when coding was a higher calling and free software a religion. To be sure, increased adoption by mainstream enterprises has played a hand in changing the terms of this debate. Yet, as the biggest consumer of open source software, enterprise IT still gives almost nothing back to the community, critics contend, calling into question the long-term effect corporate culture will have on the evolution of open source — and the long-term effect open source will have on rewiring companies toward collaboration."
No, you don't seem to be very clear on this. While I don't agree with these complaints, you are blatantly wrong on three counts. First, it is not the community as a whole, it is a subset of it, and a tiny one at that. Second, free as in speech, not as in beer. Third, they aren't asking for "compensation".
Now we complain that these corporations are taking advantage ...
What's this "we" business? "We" are not complaining, one guy is complaining and he got his complaint posted on /.
The freeloaders are a fact of life. And they don't really bother me. The value of a piece of software is what it can do for me; it's not dependent on scarcity. If a thousand other people start using this software, it has absolutely no effect on what I can do with it.