Just 10 Years of Open Source?
Abhijit Nadgouda says it's been a decade since the term open source was chosen to represent the concept. This is true, but the concept has been around far longer. I remember reading through freely available source code to BBS systems back in the mid-late 80's to discover their secrets. Long before that, software was freely given away with source code by hobbyists.
With such a long and rich history, it seems somewhat strange that "open source" is just now enjoying its 15 minutes of fame. Sure, it has forever changed the way software is created and consumed, but why now all of a sudden?
I believe it's just the right time and place to happen. The ubiquitous tools of the Information Age finally make it trivial for large numbers of diverse and geographically separated people to collaborate towards a shared goal about which they are passionate. In the olden days, it was a real pain to dial-up point-to-point with each computer you wanted to explore. It took a lot of manual labor just to find interesting computers, let alone exchange information with them. It was also tedious to hold a simple on-line conversation with somebody at 110 baud where you could see the characters being displayed one or two at a time. The concept of open source still flourished, but there was just too much overhead involved to break into the mainstream.
Also:
It may seem almost ghoul-like to suggest that that which hurts the software industry as a whole can strongly benefit open source, but evidence is mounting that that's true. In a recent visit to India, Rich Green, Sun Microsystems' executive vice president of software said: "During an economic slowdown, not everything slows down [and] IT projects will continue to be undertaken, but IT budgets will be reduced." He also noted that lower cost options, including open source, would get a boost.
What Hurts Them Helps Us: How Open Source Benefits from the Bad
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