Re: [PLUG] Eric Raymond in FastCompany Magazine!

[Paul <emailme@dpagin.net>]

Jeyes, David (371) wrote:

> http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/29/inspired.html
>
> Eric Raymond in FastCompany Magazine!"What's most intriguing about 
> "open-source" software isn't what it does -- it's how it gets created. 
> Eric S. Raymond, open-source evangelist, explains why and how these 
> programmers do their work -- and what that means for the rest of us."


This part is interesting:

"Then they realized that they, and Cisco, had a problem. The two 
programmers who had worked on that project were the ones who wrote, 
understood, and cared about the code. They knew that they were not going 
to work at Cisco forever. (These days, who works at any company 
forever?) Eventually, they would leave and their code would rot; it 
wouldn't be upgraded to reflect new conditions. No developers like to 
see that happen to their work. So the programmers urged Cisco to release 
their application as open-source software. Their argument: By 
encouraging a community of codevelopers and users, Cisco would be 
seeding a pool of people who would keep upgrading the software, at no 
additional cost."

Now Cisco doesn't need to worry as much about the two programmers 
leaving the Company.  Now Cisco doesn't need to worry as much about 
getting rid of the two employees, or off-shoring their jobs!  So, at 
least in this case, isn't open-sourcing the code good for Cisco and the 
world, but potentially detrimental to the creators of the code?

___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group         --        http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion  --   http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug