Linked by Eugenia Loli-Queru on Thu 12th Apr 2007 00:36 UTC, submitted by WillM
"In the beginning... open source was pure and unadulterated. Over time, the idea of community-build software that is free and unfettered by sticky licensing terms and fees caught on with IT buyers, and the disruption of the old order began. Now, open source (Linux, Eclipse, Java, etc.) is mainstream, with many companies giving away valuable software for free and looking to gain profits from their largess."
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RE[2]: Leave brain at door
by TechGeek on Thu 12th Apr 2007 13:36
in reply to "RE: Leave brain at door"
Member since:2006-01-14
Open source is a two way street. Big corporations are also dumping a lot of resources into building the community up. As long as they treat the community right, they will be treated to free development. Let them turn on the community though and watch out. Lets take XFree86 for example. It was pretty much standard in every distro until the developer went against the community. Well the community in turn removed XFree86 and replaced it with Xorg. The same can happen to any big corp that gets too big for its britches. The reason this works is that the community owns the IP. Anyone can reuse GPL software. So the good and will of the many always wins out over the wants of the few.
Member since:
2005-07-08
Sorry for being a bit cynical here but my experience develop software on the IT for big corporations says exactly that.
They only support open source because it is free.
Exactly the same as having last year university students doing project work under the disguise of university project.
I've been in enough projects to know what this is unfortunately true.