Kim Polese: Next stop--open source (ZDNet) [LWN.net]

Kim Polese: Next stop--open source (ZDNet)

Posted Nov 5, 2004 3:23 UTC (Fri) by robla (subscriber, #424)
In reply to: Kim Polese: Next stop--open source (ZDNet) by emkey
Parent article: Kim Polese: Next stop--open source (ZDNet)

I think your model assumes that you have the management competency to hire good developers and manage them well. It also assumes that great developers will work inside companies without much in the way of career advancement. Basically, if you become the "OpenOffice developer" at an automobile manufacturer, you won't necessarily be rewarded for becoming a really good OpenOffice developer career-wise. Moreover, most of the really good developers I know like to work and hang out with other really good developers.

It's going to take some fiddling around with business models to get it right, but I think the concept of a good support organization has potential.

Rob

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Kim Polese: Next stop--open source (ZDNet)

Posted Nov 5, 2004 17:48 UTC (Fri) by emkey (guest, #144) [Link]

I can see where you're coming from. In theory larger companies would end up with groups of half a dozen to a dozen developers working on various projects. Sure, there would be turnover as some people would want more opportunity then such a setup would present but this isn't that much different from traditional software development projects.

Small the mid sized companies might be better served by buying support from outside companies. Ideally there would be more then one support company per product so that that there would be a bit of choice and competition.

The key is to try to figure out if the OpenSource model can be made to fit better into the traditional way of doing business. I think it can. In fact I think there are some very compelling arguments why it is a much better model then what is common today.

I'd liken it to the transition from mainframes to minis in some ways...