December 8th, 2005
The OpenLogic that we are all journalists now
I was chatting this morning with Steven Grandchamp, CEO of OpenLogic, whose new version of BlueGlue lets companies certify their entire open source software stacks, not just those 150 projects OpenLogic already supports.
He was bragging on the hiring of Stormy Peters from H-P as their new director of product management. "She has very deep relationships in the community. She knows all the major players and projects."
She has credibility, I suggested. He agreed.
Then he talked about how she was recruited. It wasn’t about the money. "I don’t think you can build a business in this space without being a good community contributor," he concluded. There are other values which are important to open source community leaders, non-economic demands many expect employers to meet.
We’re all journalists now, I suggested. Credibility is a key value. So are honesty, and a proper balance of giving-and-taking where the commodity is information. These are the values taught in a good journalism school. Credibility is a key value. So are honesty, and a proper balance of giving-and-taking where the commodity is information. These are the values taught in a good journalism school.
It turns out this is one of the key issues now on boards where this suddenly "hot" commodity known as open source talent gathers, Grandchamp noted
"That is a supply and demand issue. If you follow some of the blogs there’s an undercurrent of tracking resources from open source projects to commercial vendors. But if you look at the title, open source executives moving on, developers being hired by various people, one of the discussions they were having was around that topic. There are a limited number of resources out there, and if you don’t find a way to get a connection into that community, unless you have deep pockets, it’s tough."
So, values, or dollars? Which is going to win out? A good issue to follow for 2006.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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