Hey guys, sorry I took so long to write this post, This weekend we had our lacrosse playoffs, unfortunately we lost in the first round so we came back early. ANYWAYS....
Watch this first, then we'll talk:
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/howard_rheingold_on_collaboration.html.
The Open Source movement is a very intriguing argument. At first I really did not know much about the idea of open sourcing but after discovering that some of my favorite programs use open source I began questioning how important it was to me.
What do I think about the open source movement?
Its incredible, simple as that. Being able to collaborate with hundreds of other people to attempt to create something great is something I simply could never shoot down. Think about all the possibilities a group of people could create compared to just singular individuals. Yes of course there are some talented individuals but as a whole, more eyes is better than one.
The odds...
In my mind, very high. This isn't something that's just going to disappear, people will always open source. Eventually I believe open sourcing my become better than programs.
What about Proprietary Programs...
Here's the slippery slope about open sourcing. While I think it has the potential to become more powerful then some of the existing programs out there, it wont ever take them over. Some existing programs are set in stone, they will always be there, they have been working for companies for years and with a little improvement they will stay for a long time. Sometimes open sourcing is illogical, something like a bank would most likely operate on proprietary software simply because it will function better without any crashes.
In the end...
Would I buy into it? That's a weird question because part of the reason why I think open sourcing is so awesome is because anyone can do it, there's no money involved really. That's speaking in a literal sense, would I buy into the concept, absolutely. Open Sourcing is here to stay, its a simple an effective way to collaborate on some really great things.
