Comments on: Why Open Source http://jacwright.com/blog/78/why-open-source/ Flex, AIR, PHP, etc. Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:05:52 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: Keith Gaddis http://jacwright.com/blog/78/why-open-source/comment-page-1/#comment-7819 Keith Gaddis Thu, 24 Apr 2008 04:12:04 +0000 http://jacwright.com/blog/?p=78#comment-7819 I'll give you a good example, from your own site, no less! I've been playing with your AS3 implementation of ActiveRecord evaluating whether to use it or roll my own, and i've already made some changes that would be useful in the wider scope of the code. Of course, that code isn't truly open-source, yet (hint hint!)--I may have to rip it out still if its not ultimately licensed in a way I can use it. As for the larger case for open-source, sometimes it makes sense and sometimes it doesn't. One thing to look at: Is the code useful on its own? In the case of the above library, the answer is no, at least as far as an end user is concerned. While eminently useful to a developer, its ultimately supporting a more targeted development effort, and therefore it makes sense to put it out under an OS license. As more people use it, the code improves, and all the targeted development efforts that rely on it reap the benefits. On the other hand, we all have to eat! I'm a huge fan of OSS, but when you spend hours, weeks, months, even years developing applications that make money for other people, that's probably not something you want to give away. My experience with it is that unless you're giving it away to a pool of developers, as with libraries, you're probably not going to get much in the way of dividends for your effort. Sure, the odd support contract will come your way, and there are certainly cases where you can build quite a business off it, though they seem to be the exception rather than the rule. By and large though you need to have paying customers somewhere in the chain. The other area OSS makes a lot of sense is when the software being written is not intended to make money--internal applications used by major corporations, for example. A lot of software gets developed in companies of varying sizes that's merely there to let them do their jobs better, and in a lot of cases, releasing those apps to the world makes sense in that they're not losing dollars, and they may well benefit from community development efforts. i didn't mean to post my own little diatribe here! interesting discussion though, and please email me if you're interested in collaborating on the AS3-AR library. I’ll give you a good example, from your own site, no less! I’ve been playing with your AS3 implementation of ActiveRecord evaluating whether to use it or roll my own, and i’ve already made some changes that would be useful in the wider scope of the code. Of course, that code isn’t truly open-source, yet (hint hint!)–I may have to rip it out still if its not ultimately licensed in a way I can use it.

As for the larger case for open-source, sometimes it makes sense and sometimes it doesn’t. One thing to look at: Is the code useful on its own? In the case of the above library, the answer is no, at least as far as an end user is concerned. While eminently useful to a developer, its ultimately supporting a more targeted development effort, and therefore it makes sense to put it out under an OS license. As more people use it, the code improves, and all the targeted development efforts that rely on it reap the benefits.

On the other hand, we all have to eat! I’m a huge fan of OSS, but when you spend hours, weeks, months, even years developing applications that make money for other people, that’s probably not something you want to give away. My experience with it is that unless you’re giving it away to a pool of developers, as with libraries, you’re probably not going to get much in the way of dividends for your effort. Sure, the odd support contract will come your way, and there are certainly cases where you can build quite a business off it, though they seem to be the exception rather than the rule. By and large though you need to have paying customers somewhere in the chain.

The other area OSS makes a lot of sense is when the software being written is not intended to make money–internal applications used by major corporations, for example. A lot of software gets developed in companies of varying sizes that’s merely there to let them do their jobs better, and in a lot of cases, releasing those apps to the world makes sense in that they’re not losing dollars, and they may well benefit from community development efforts.

i didn’t mean to post my own little diatribe here! interesting discussion though, and please email me if you’re interested in collaborating on the AS3-AR library.

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