Open source suppliers and demand

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Keeping programmers as pets

Quoting from the Black Cauldron (I think):
The community's stars are increasingly finding they can get paid for what they want to do, instead of pursuing open source as a hobby funded by another day job. Corporations like Red Hat, O'Reilly Associates, and VA Linux Systems are building what amounts of semi-independent research arms with charters to hire and maintain stables of open-source talent.

John Carroll commented:
First, of people paid to spend all their time on a single piece of software, proprietary developers constitute the majority. I question the degree to which "working to earn goodwill" (Raymond's explanation of the motivation companies would have for hiring "open source superstars") will pick up the slack created by the reduction in proprietary software jobs.


The "stable" of talent is an attempt to solve a self-created problem for Mr. Raymond.
John's right; when money is being made on consulting services, not software, then why innovate?
In fact, innovation, in the sense of making a better software solution widely available, reduces the need for services.
So why should a company built on open source want to hire?

The only answer, since it's not money, is "good will". Interesting term. We know that good will loses value over time, has to be written off, depreciated.

Still, who's to say this stable of superstars won't produce something from their stalls ...uhm cubicles?
They won't be under any pressure to produce.
They won't have any reason to match what they discover to what's useful.
There won't be anyone trying to figure out how to make a marketable product out of the discovery and do the hard work to disseminate it.

But still, the superstars should be led out and dragged around the course by their bridles for the crowd to admire from time to time. They could use the exercise.

What a waste!!

Posted by: Anton Philidor   Posted on: 05/19/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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