IP: Daily Report from The Chronicle of Higher Education (fwd)

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> From: jod () ccat sas upenn edu (James J. O'Donnell)
>
>
> Dave, I do *not* endorse this article, but in the spirit of IP provocation
> pass it along for stimulation.
>
> jo'd
>
>
>
> MAGAZINES & JOURNALS
>
> A glance at the fall issue of "The Milken Institute Review":
> The future of open-source software
>
> David Evans, a consultant with National Economic Research
> Associates, an economic-consulting company, examines the
> different motives driving open-source and proprietary software
> and ponders the future of the former.
>
> The motivations for following a proprietary model, he writes,
> are "easily understood -- it's about making money."
> Open-sourcers, by contrast, create software for a number of
> reasons, few of them motivated by material gain. Some simply
> enjoy writing code, some crave recognition as skilled
> programmers, some think it will enhance their resumes.
>
> But those reasons, combined with some licensing models that
> threaten proprietary copyrights, do not bode well for the
> industry's sustainability. In essence, Mr. Evans writes, without
> the motivation of personal gain, open-source programmers might
> not be willing to work on projects that, while uninteresting and
> unchallenging, are necessary to make open-source software appeal
> to a wide audience. And the often rough-edged and technical
> products, while allowing users to tinker with them, have a
> limited appeal.
>
> In the end, open-source software is written by techies for
> techies, and if that narrow audience is catered to, open-source
> might have a promising, if unprofitable, future. But if
> open-sourcers attempt to appeal to the masses -- by, say,
> marketing Linux as a mainstream operating system -- they might
> institutionalize and overextend themselves out of existence.
>
> The article is available online at
> http://www.milkeninstitute.org/poe.cfm?point=review (requires
> Adobe Acrobat Reader, available free at
> http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html).

For archives see:
http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/