Interview with Second Life's Cory Ondrejka [LWN.net]

Interview with Second Life's Cory Ondrejka

Posted Jan 25, 2007 9:17 UTC (Thu) by renox (subscriber, #23785)
In reply to: Interview with Second Life's Cory Ondrejka by nix
Parent article: Interview with Second Life's Cory Ondrejka

>>there's never been a product that was in the dominant position that then
>>open sourced. Open source is usually used by folk who are either trying to
>>gain market share, or projects that are very early stage
>is rubbish unless interpreted very narrowly, and is decidedly questionable even then.

Uh? Could you give examples?
I certainly don't remember any other product which was open sourced when it was in a dominant position.

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Interview with Second Life's Cory Ondrejka

Posted Jan 25, 2007 21:19 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

It's a meaningless question. Most popular open source projects have been open source right from the start, immediately disqualifying them. That leaves VERY few contenders to choose from, probably numbered somewhere in the tens. I think that's what nix meant when he said "razor thin".

It's like saying, "how many all-star quarterbacks went to Notre Dame and drove a LeSabre while there?" The question eradicates most of its candidates so it's futile to try to draw a meaningful general conclusion from its results. (my apologies to Joe Montana if he drove a crappy Buick...)

That said, there's one very obvious example that's been all over the news lately. It's easily the most popular language for business and it has a small triangle named Duke as its mascot. I have a few others in mind but it would take some work for me to make sure. And, since the question is meaningless, I shan't take the time.

Does that make sense?