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May 12, 2007
Opensource as Religion?
Opensource as Religion? Some people talk in terms of Belief, true. Others like to talk and talk, and the opensource movement ends up helping them believe in themselves. But I think most people are more practical, pragmatic, and will use whichever solutions best fit the job. Erecting architectures of code is a group effort, and there are different ways humans can work together in groups: sometimes there's a hierarchical contractual relationship, as in a business responsible to shareholders... sometimes there are more fluid ad-hoc groups, easier to enter and leave without financial commitment. Each type of group can produce different kinds of things, and I think we need them both -- the more ways we have to approach the problems of digital communication, the better off we'll all end up. This is very clear in the SWF ecology, where lots of different groups are attacking lots of different problems. More a practical, pragmatic thing; less a Believer/non-Believer kind of thing. Opensource is sometimes a religion, but that doesn't mean it always is. (The headline to the linked article doesn't match its final paragraphs, so I'm not sure what the author's overall message actually was.... ;-)
Posted by JohnDowdell at May 12, 2007 11:59 AM
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Comments
Open Source is no more religion than the Microsoft or Apple cults, or even mindsets of longtime employees whose identity is bound with their company. Not that there's any wrong with that, but there really should be concern in an age of media monopoly. Rupert Murdoch's News Corps' recent statements about further consolidation by the oligarchs show the problem: Peter Chernin and the Time Warner CEO weren't just talking about Dow Jones/WSJ -- but Google, Yahoo, eBay, and Amazon. (http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070508/news_corp_chernin.html)
(http://www.newscorpse.com/ncWP/?p=432)
Read/WriteWeb.com also has a good post on Mozilla and the future of the browser, which looks at recent presos from Mozilla designers, as well as commentators concerned with an open web and stuff in the works from Adobe, Microsoft, Apple, Sun, etc.
Posted by: Rich at May 12, 2007 01:58 PM