Linux News reports today that a Feb. 1 opening is set for the "Open Technology Business Center," a business incubator to boost the growing collaborative (or "open source") software and computer technology industry. The center is funded by the Portland suburb of Beaverton, The State of Oregon, and a company named Open Source Development Labs. For laymen, "open source" is a very different way of developing software: developers collaborate on the Web; early on, everything is available free to users online; and is subsequently improved and customized for further public review without lawyers and accountants getting in the way. Eventually some really useful, less bugg-y products make their way to market.
It's not like what, say, Microsoft is used to. They certainly do software testing and work closely with a community of developers beyond Redmond. But not anyone can "look under the hood" before, during or after the product is developed, and then produce an improved version for review and further tweaking by a far-flung digital community. Which is one reason Microsoft co-founder and chairman Bill Gates has been known to call "open source" collabortation "communist."
More on that from Paul Andrews who also notes Gates has used software giveaways - combined with a practice known as "bundling" - to Microsoft's advantage.
"Open Source" doesn't mean unprofitable, or forever free. And this method of manufacture is becoming decidedly capitalist, so it can't be too "communist." As software, servers and desktop computers are developed through open source collaboration, marketable products eventually emerge. The Open Source technology market is expected to reach $40 billion by 2008, according to Linux News.
Even though most blogs aren't now offered up with the idea of profit, and many never will be, there are interesting parallels between the development of "Open Source" software and computer technology on the one hand, and blog-centric "Open Source" journalism on the other.
By reacting to and critiquing the news, and by occasionally generating headline-making original content, blogs have played a major role in the emergence of what's now being called "citizen" or "Open Source" journalism. As newspaper circulations continue to level off or decline, and as TV and radio viewers tire of biased and slickly packaged fare, bloggers are poised to continue their rise as an alternative media source, thriving on open collaboration with online allies including other bloggers, old media content providers, and the many blog readers who add their own digital and intellectual capital into the mix.
Just as a software colossus like Microsoft must adapt to more nimble and hungry competitors, old media companies will survive declining impact and audiences only by heeding their own nimble competitors (such my Sound Politics blogging colleague Stefan Sharkansky) and the citizens media revolution in which blogging plays such a central role.
Posted by Matt Rosenberg at January 25, 2005 05:51 PM
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Hey Matt, thanks for the plug!
You're right, I'm not much informed by religion when it comes to politics. I'm old fashioned in that I really do believe in freedom.
Spend some time in a few of the countries I've been to and one develops an appreciation for it.
Posted by: Iguana at January 26, 2005 10:14 AMOpen source has been a buzz word(s) since Nixon's first term. It has not taken off because the money is not there. The $ is writing code for Apple or Ellison, Linux has been strugling for over a decade because none of their folk will work the 3,500 hrs a year the Job's top coders put in. To get people to work more than the standard 1,500 hrs a year they must get a BIG reward, either fame or fortune. Neither of which is available from "open source".
Posted by: Rod Stanton at January 26, 2005 11:51 AMRod, always great to hear from you. But I gotta note two things. 1) you say "open source" has been a buzzword since Nixon's first term - 68-72. i think it's really only in the decade or so, I mean in '72, software and PCs were pretty primitive. We didn't even have the established model (i.e. Intel, Microsoft) against which to rebel.
The other thing is, open source can't be totally hype if it makes Bill Gates and his lieutentants nervous enough to throw around the term "communist" in describing it (see Paul Andres link in my post); even if some of the references (i.e. at Microsoft card games) are tinged with amped-up buffonery.
Granted, working as an open-source software developer isn't the way to make a pile of dough compared to crunching code elsewhere, but open source devotees are out there plugging away and some users are using and liking what they're doing.....as with the co-existence of old media and blogs, it will take time for products developed under the alternative approach to penetrate the market or move to a stronger revenue model, but the process is underway.
Posted by: Matt Rosenberg at January 26, 2005 08:37 PM