Does It Matter Where Open Source is Based?

munchola writes "CBR has created a map of current open source software providers that contradicts the recent assertion of Alfresco's Matt Asay that "open source is not a Silicon Valley phenomenon". That statement has prompted a debate about the importance of location, involving Asay, Robert Scoble, and Dana Blankenhorn. A closer look shows that open source is very much a Silicon Valley phenomenon."

Re:Get slashdotted!

[kesuki]

don't worry you didn't miss anything :)

a map full of baloons claiming that open source only is developed in a few developed nations. completely ignoring developments from africa, australia, and several other locations :) bascially you just saved yourself 15 minutes of your time by not reading the article :)

Re:Makes no sense to me

[croddy]

additionally, it appears that the concentration of open source balloons on his map is much higher on the east coast of the united states than the bay area -- or the entire west coast. i'm not sure what the summary is getting at here, but it sounds like someone's just trying to drum up adsense hits.

They miss the point completely.

[agent dero]

Two points to make here, because of the nature of open source, and technology in general you don't necessarily need to have everybody at the downtown office, or a downtown office to begin with. This has _nothing_ to do with it being open source or not. A map of large tech companies I would guess is as equally diverse.

There's a reason to go to silicon valley. The area is beautiful, and the talent pool for your $COMPANY there is tremendous, if you need 20 engineers to work on some software project, finding 20 skilled individuals in Atlanta, Georgia is going to suck. Trying to find 20 skilled people in silicon valley is a matter of going out to a busy resturant at lunch ;)

But where are the developers

[Hyram Graff]

From the article:

What this map does not take into account, of course, is where the individual developers are based - it is a representation of enterprise open source providers, as opposed to open source developers - and it would be interesting to see how different that map would look (if it were possible to create one).

It makes sense to see so many dots in the Silicon Valley since this is a map of where companies who develop open source software are located. I would guess that if plotted where developers who have created open source software, enterprise or not, are located that you will find a *lot* more dots in Europe and a lot less in Silicon Valley.

So really, nothing to see here, move along.

duh

[doti]

open source vendors != open source creators

What does "providers" mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this just companies that create open source solutions, like MySQL is? Companies that sell open source solutions other people primarily made, like IBM does? Places like SourceForge? What?

How many important open source projects have one central coordinating authority, like SourceForge or LKML, and the actual project members are spread geographically over the globe?

Who exactly is on this list, and how were they chosen? The article does not say what the selection criteria was, and I see entries on the map ranging from JBoss (an important project) to "Linux Networx" (Who?).

If this map tosses in companies like IBM for whom open source is an important strategy but still a peripheral part of their business, but ignores people like Alan Cox living in a little cottage in a field somewhere in Britain, it may be all you've done here is make a map of "software corporations".

it matters and its not the valley

[GenKreton]

It matters a lot where opensource is based and it will tend not to be in the valley. Those projects cited are a small, select few. The opensource mentality isn't as strong there as other parts of the country and world. And the United States (as a citizen who deals with those in other countries on opensource projects, I can say this) have much better cultures and laws for open source to properly thrive. Things like the DMCA and our patent system aren't just a pain for the consumer but will cause us to lose businesses too. It may take time but when they notice it will be a bit late.

Re:Get slashdotted!

[crazyjeremy]

What does this say about how much employers trust telecommuters. Can't a lot of people in these industries work from home anyway? How many must actually be in the office?

This is stupid

[Spazmania]

The map shows open source "vendors" not open source developers. Of course it shows essentially the same distribution as software vendors in general. The surprise would be if it showed anything else.

It also says exactly nothing about the physical distribution of the open source phenomenon.

Re:Makes no sense to me

[Zeinfeld]

Its worse than that, it treats each OSS project as if it was a geographically concentrated entity. Most are not.

The Apache group worked together for years without most of the principals so much as meeting. It began in Chicago at NCSA and spread.

The origin of the OSS movement was quite definitely Cambridge MA and Stallman. He may be mad as a hatter but he did start things.

OK so there are more OSS startups based in the valley than elsewhere. That merely shows that there is more VC in the Valley and they don't like to travel. If people are going to treat the OSS startups as if they are OSS then we might as well close up show now.

Most of the OSS startups have business models that make no more sense than Dilbert and Wally's attempt to corner the maket for Internet sales of tuna sandwiches. Boy it sure looks like 1997 again. Only difference this time is that OSS is the new Java.

Re:Get slashdotted!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow - Australia's not a developed nation now?

Vendors != producers

[EmbeddedJanitor]

This might show where some of the OSS **vendors** are located, but it does not show where the people writing the code are.... and it freaks me that New Zealand and half of Oz are not on the map. I live in NZ and I've written my share of OSS!