December 31st, 2006
Open source New Year's Resolutions
Before you disappear inside a champagne bottle (or perhaps some hours after you emerge) I want to offer the open source movement some New Year's Resolutions.(This is the LinuxCaffe in Toronto, a fine coffee bar where open source enthusiasts often meet. Don't drink and drive.)
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Fewer Lawyers – Lawyers, like the poor, will always be with us. They write the contracts and organize relationships. But they also have a bad habit of playing “gotcha” in contract language and convincing managers that the game is real. And their habit of litigation, even spamigation, costs everyone billions of dollars a year. Less of that, please.
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Stop Fighting the Market – The idea that open source is anti-market was always bunk. But forces like altruism can also be market forces. It is time we realized that, stopped arguing about it, and got down to the business of making some serious money. And maybe invested in a little more advertising at ZDNet, eh?
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Time for Innovation – It is time for open source to lead, not just in terms of business models but in terms of interfaces, back-end processing, and especially in programming tools. Increasing programmer productivity remains Job One.
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Embrace and Extend – I have always favored the extension of the open source model into new areas, and I think that will start to happen this year. Areas like Internet access, hardware, even in the way we organize our politics. The model has much to teach us and we should be open to it.
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Accept Progress – A desire for consensus has allowed open source to slow progress. In areas like Ipv6 and the GPL v. 3 we need less talk. Make it happen.
These are just a few ideas from a timid observer. What are your New Year's resolutions for open source?
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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