Gavin, 28 February 06
Open source software works on a principal of free access to both the finished programs but also the source – the means of producing the finished programs. Some people have expressed low expectations for the quality of open source projects – how can something free be as good as what MS and others are charging a fortune for. Linux, OpenOffice and the Mozilla Firefox browser all highlight the fact that open projects can not only equal commercial offerings but often actually work far better.
Open source doesn’t necessarily mean free of commercial interest – often support, distribution and the lead in development itself is commercially focused. Mozilla grew from Netscape – part of the massive Time-Warner-AOL group and OpenOffice is a subset of the commercial Star Office product. These are ways that businesses have found that work to maximise contributions from community developers, testers and advocates. They see it is often the only way they can break through in a market where monopoly is often the rule and provides the only chance they have of making any commercial gains.
This didn’t go down well with the bureaucrats in a Northern English town recently – trading standards officers who wanted to prosecute distributors of open source Mozilla products.
They were incredulous that cooperation and a non-commercial approach could even be considered alongside current profit based distribution.
I can’t believe that your company would allow people to make money from something that you allow people to have free access to. Is this really the case?
The reaction of the lady from trading standards does show how the mere concept of different production models can throw their perceptions in our normally directly profit centred society.
