Tuesday, October 28, 2003

Commercial Software - Moral Failure

Kapor: Why the old development model is history ""No sustaining value was created during the boom years," said Kapor to an auditorium packed with a mix of open source and "traditional" developers representing virtually every mainline firm in Silicon Valley. Instead, a "lot of wealth was created and distributed among those who were either lucky or opportunistic." Kapor says that this GRQ -- Get Rich Quick -- development model has had a profoundly negative affect, amounting to "moral failure" that will be with us for years to come."

""Open source software, like flowing water, will go everywhere it can go," said Kapor. And that's not a bad thing; it may be harder to get ultra-rich developing software, he said, but it's easier to start a software company, thanks to the rich base of existing open source projects."

""Open source is a surprising success. No one predicted it in the '80s or '90s. It's completely crazy, it defies conventional wisdom, it has no central control, yet it produces products that are the equal of commercial software," he said.

Kapor ended his talk with a Bill Joy quote that seemed to sum up his take on open source software: "Sooner or later, you realize that most of the smart people in the world don't work for your company." "

Old is relative, open source software was used in the '50s, '60s and '70s and most money seems to have been made through hardware and later, consulting.

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