Comment Re:Businessweek never gets it (Score 1) 173
Perhaps you can't truly "buy" the code to the project itself (although, in some cases it would be possible to buy the original copyright). However, if the community ends up forking the (commercialized) code, they lose the brand name of the original project and (most likely) the original developers of the project. Forking code is (relatively) easy. So is rewriting an entire project from scratch. What's really tough is maintaining the energy and enthusiasm to to ensure the new project succeeds in the long term. That's not going to be easy if you have high developer turnover.
I think a lot of people underestimate the value of a project's core developers. If you lose them, the dynamics of the project can change dramatically.
Dave Rosenberg wrote up a response the the BW article yesterday. I responded with some comments and he posted them at the URL below. If you're interested in my take on things as the lead developer of Nagios, check it out:
http://weblog.infoworld.com/openresource/archives/ 2006/03/ethan_galstad_o.html
-- Ethan Galstad, Nagios Developer
I think a lot of people underestimate the value of a project's core developers. If you lose them, the dynamics of the project can change dramatically.
Dave Rosenberg wrote up a response the the BW article yesterday. I responded with some comments and he posted them at the URL below. If you're interested in my take on things as the lead developer of Nagios, check it out:
http://weblog.infoworld.com/openresource/archives
-- Ethan Galstad, Nagios Developer
