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Some learning to do?
From http://jaaksi.blogspot.com/2008/06/some-learning-t
Posted on 2008-06-13 17:27:00 UTC.
...related to the article found here.
The journalist emphasized things his way -- things that he saw important. Fair enough. My points are:
Companies like Nokia need to learn the open source way of working. This means not only fulfilling the letter of GPL, LGPL etc. but also the spirit. In my mind this means integrating the corporate work with the open source community, participating, contributing back the code, building the code in open projects and not only releasing it when mandatory, not forking, etc. Open source is a very effective way to create software together with others; together with other individuals and other companies. This is something that the corporate must learn to really benefit from open source.
The open source community should also be willing to learn. I think it would benefit everybody if people developing open source code would understand WHY certain things are made the way they are. Maybe there are other reasons than stupidity and an evil mind? Trying to understand and learn would benefit both open source projects and corporate to come up with better solutions. As an example, a subsidized business model has it challenges in the context of truly open devices. Understanding why, what to do about it, etc, would benefit us all.
Then, somebody told me that the open source community do not need to listen or learn from the corporate. They do not work for you, somebody said. But actually, many of them do. Let me explain:
The most relevant open source projects have an increasing number of corporate developers. Companies like Nokia, Red Hat, Novel, IBM, Opened Hand, Imendio, Trolltech, HP, and so forth develop code in projects such as Linux, GStreamer, Mozilla, KDE, GNOME etc .. For these companies, open source is not a hobby but serious business. It is a way to get software developed in an open collaborative manner -- to meet their business goals. So if a company pays (as a salary, as a contract to a hacker company or some other way) for the development, then I claim that the developer works for the company. Even if the development happens in an open source project.
We participate in open source projects with individuals, but also with companies like listed above. I think it benefits everybody to understand the constraints, motivations, and limitations each individual, corporate or project may have.
I'm not a teacher, I'm a learner.
The journalist emphasized things his way -- things that he saw important. Fair enough. My points are:
Companies like Nokia need to learn the open source way of working. This means not only fulfilling the letter of GPL, LGPL etc. but also the spirit. In my mind this means integrating the corporate work with the open source community, participating, contributing back the code, building the code in open projects and not only releasing it when mandatory, not forking, etc. Open source is a very effective way to create software together with others; together with other individuals and other companies. This is something that the corporate must learn to really benefit from open source.
The open source community should also be willing to learn. I think it would benefit everybody if people developing open source code would understand WHY certain things are made the way they are. Maybe there are other reasons than stupidity and an evil mind? Trying to understand and learn would benefit both open source projects and corporate to come up with better solutions. As an example, a subsidized business model has it challenges in the context of truly open devices. Understanding why, what to do about it, etc, would benefit us all.
Then, somebody told me that the open source community do not need to listen or learn from the corporate. They do not work for you, somebody said. But actually, many of them do. Let me explain:
The most relevant open source projects have an increasing number of corporate developers. Companies like Nokia, Red Hat, Novel, IBM, Opened Hand, Imendio, Trolltech, HP, and so forth develop code in projects such as Linux, GStreamer, Mozilla, KDE, GNOME etc .. For these companies, open source is not a hobby but serious business. It is a way to get software developed in an open collaborative manner -- to meet their business goals. So if a company pays (as a salary, as a contract to a hacker company or some other way) for the development, then I claim that the developer works for the company. Even if the development happens in an open source project.
We participate in open source projects with individuals, but also with companies like listed above. I think it benefits everybody to understand the constraints, motivations, and limitations each individual, corporate or project may have.
I'm not a teacher, I'm a learner.