Today, I'll introduce the article of Economist.com "Open, but not as usual".
As “open-source” models move beyond software into other businesses, their limitations are becoming apparent
Apache, Wikipedia and developing drugs projects are introduced.
Though these might not contain any software “source code”, the “open-source” label can now applymore broadly to all sorts of endeavour that amalgamate the contributions of private individuals tocreate something that, in effect, becomes freely available to all.
"Open-source" label is used in many products which don't have any source code.
But the biggest worry is that the great benefit of the open-source approach is also its great undoing. Its advantage is that anyone can contribute
The great benefit and undoing of open-source is that anyone can contribute.
With software, for instance, the code is written chiefly not by volunteers, but by employeessponsored for their efforts by companies that think they will in some way benefit from the project.
The code is mainly written by employees not volunteers.
Of the roughly 130,000 open-source projects on SourceForge.net, an online hub for open-sourcesoftware projects, only a few hundred are active, and fewer still will ever lead to a useful product. The most important thing holding back the open-source model, apparently, is itself.
There are 130,000 projects on SourceForge, but only a few hundred are active, and fewer useful product.
It'll be continued..
Comments