Collaboration vs. Competition

You probably know what Open Source software is by now. But just in case people under your rock aren’t putting it to use yet, here’s the rough idea:

Open Source software provides free programs for your computer that are comparable to the ones released by corporate giants, but here’s the big distinction.

They’re free.
Owned (and often operated) by “everyone”.
Open.

(An obvious example is Open Office, which is a free Word Processing program that does most of the things Microsoft Word can do.)

A lot of times, open-source software gets press because of its contrarian attitude. Self-proclaimed rebels use it as a way to keep another $200 out of Microsoft’s hands.

But this guy named Eric Raymond (no relation to the beautiful Raymonds who gave birth to yours truly), co-founder of the Open Source Initiative, says open-source shouldn’t be adopted out of a desire to be confrontational. It should be adopted because it’s smarter.

Here’s why:

Software is built on code–sometimes millions of lines of code. This can make it impossible even for giant companies with big payrolls to carefully proofread every line of code. As a result, typos and missing elements in software codes cause a lot of glitches even in the corporate-released software.

(Glitches in Microsoft products? Gasp!)

But if you open that software up and let a lot of eyes take a look at it, there’s a good chance those bugs will be found. Or as Eric says, “given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.”

Before you write off Eric’s suggestion that people could work together to create and maintain valuable software, you might want to take a look at the video below made by a guy who inadvertently created another project that people didn’t think would take off.

It’s called Wikipedia.

(Maybe you’ve heard of it…or even been there a time or “two”?)

Amazing what people can do when they collaborate rather than just compete.