What Business Can Learn from Open Source
paulgraham.com
What Business Can Learn from Open Source
There’s so much buzz and excitement about the open-source movement today, and many of these principles are hailed as revolutionary, as a sign of the times. But at their core lies something ancient. I believe creativity itself is the original open-source code.
Maria Popova • Networked Knowledge and Combinatorial Creativity
My notes from Hackers & Painters by Paul Graham:
The way to create something beautiful is often to make subtle tweaks to something that already exists, or to combine existing ideas in a slightly new way.
There are only two things you have to know about business: build something users love, and make more than you spend. If you get these two ri... See more
Open-source projects—not just commercial open source—have served as a critical driver for the improvement of products for decades. However, some software is going to remain closed source. It’s just the nature of first-mover advantage. But when transparency and extensibility are an issue, an open-source successor becomes a real threat.
github.com • Open Source Does Not Win by Being Cheaper
If you accept this premise that there is no tragedy of the commons – that open source software cannot be over-grazed by having more people use it – that freeloaders are free, and scarcity is not an applicable concept, then you’re forced to look skeptically at other assumptions we’ve been starting to make lately in the broader open source community.