Today I’m not going to talk about for or against open source, nor I’m not going to discuss the ups and downs of free software since many have done so before. Today I would like you to think global or in other words I would like you to view things universally:
The Open Source Leaders
Suppose for just a moment that every Application, Operation System (Windows, Unix and etc), Computer-Game, etc’ internals were free to view, manipulate and redistribute. Can you imagine where could we have been today?
Imagine Microsoft and Apple joining forces and working together.
Google, Yahoo and Bing all doing their best to improve our search experience.
Do we really prefer the choice instead of knowing we’re using the best application out there?
Do we really believe that competition is the better way for the human race?
Why wouldn’t the big companies go on and open their source code? Well the answer for that is quite simple and obvious, the reason is Money (and allot of it). It seems inevitable as long as money is at stake and obliviously there’s no big money if any in open source. On the other hand take a look at the change our world experiences thanks to free software, and the free information sharing through the Internet.
Today’s world where more and more sophisticated applications find their way over to the cloud, it seems absurd charging money from users, take Google docs for example. Google docs became a reasonable substitute for Microsoft office and in this case money isn’t made by selling the software to the end user.
So way isn’t it code free? Sure there’s a rich API but why Google didn’t took the next required step and publish its source code?
It’s seems to me that we as society have this boundary which forbids us from thinking as a whole and viewing ourselves as a single unit trying to push our limits by joining forces, All for the same cause. Imagine where could have we been today if we started working together for a change.
Looking ahead it seems the future of open source seems bright:
Sites like http://www.codeplex.com/ and http://www.codeproject.com/ are adding new content on a daily basis and Linux base operation system seems to finds their way into more and more large organization (such as the German and Belgium governments).
We at the CEO game understand that a competitive world is inevitable but we also believe in clarity, wisdom of the crowds, fast learning and sharing. All of which are part of thinking open source.
I opened with a statement that I won’t be talking in favour or against open source but I’m sure you can guess on which side I’m.
Roi.
The CEO Game.
