Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Open Source considered unkillable

Author:Tom Neff
Posted:8/3/1999; 11:46:58 AM
Topic:Microsoft response to Instant Messaging
Msg #:9080 (In response to 9043)
Prev/Next:9079 / 9081

No, software does not automatically run better because it's open source. Open Source is not a language, an algorithm, a coding style or an architechture, it is a PROCESS by which software and documenation gets created - a process with its own strengths and weaknesses. One of the strengths is that, with no employer to be accountable to, an apparently unprofitable software project can float along for several years (in the hands of a rotating cast of authors) until it crystallizes into something surprising and useful. (Or it might suck, or be functionally superseded by some other development - that's life in the software biz.)

Open Source harnesses the oblique energies of the Net's loose and ever-changing cast of programming geniuses, yielding software that could have been created in no other way. And it is an _inherently self-regenerating_ process, which means that no matter how companies try to "compete" with it, and no matter how much Net pundits dump on it, Open Source will always be around making interesting new stuff

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