For most of my formative years, I was primarily interested in building stuff as a personal hobby. Back then, when I first learned about Open Source, I was skeptical for one primary reason: financial (I need money ergo I need a job/gig). This reason is no longer a concern due to the brave souls that made open source software lucrative for businesses to build on.
The world we live in is not an absolutely rational world as there are no universal metrics of quality. This is where irrationality and human psychology comes in kicking over my objectivist dreams of being Hank Rearden and building the most awesome ... thing .. ever.
We humans are interesting creatures.
Why does having code rock?
I believe that having access to code, being able to extend other's ideas, and being able to combine code accelerates the art of computing through a form of evolution.
I used to have the idea that having access to code stinted the progress of innovation, but I didn't know the jargon/idea to effectively communicate it. Now I know that it is called Anchoring. By itself, anchoring is extremely bad for innovation. It forces us to use old technology to solve new problems. While this isn't bad for business as usual, it makes it harder to be disruptive and solve new problems.
Fortunately, there is a stronger force called Not Invented Here (NIH). Usually, NIH is referenced in the negative. However, if you are aiming to provide a new service or enable people to kick ass, then you need to execute and make it happen rather than being anchored to existing technology just because it worked for your old problems.
These forces combine and enable new inventions to mature to the point where the next step can be visible to someone in the community. The next step may be a small contribution, be a complete rewrite, or something entirely new and unexpected. It doesn't matter, it just speeds up our collective awesomeness.
I'm glad to have finally caught on... I wonder if I am in the early minority or the late majority.
I really, dont understand your entry.
ReplyDeleteI dont care much the nature of the solution that i have to implement. opensource or not, the only thing that i see is time to implement vs how hard is to do support. Price is not a issue.
Usually wins not source code, but from time to time there is a good documented open source proyect that we can use...
I don't see what this has to do with open source. Also consider a situation like Photoshop - no code but it works on the level that nobody really wants or needs to improve it.
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