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Technology Stocks : The *NEW* Frank Coluccio Technology Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (21878)	6/6/2007 4:34:56 AM
From: axial	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 46821

Hi Frank - I don't feel I really got a handle on what I was trying to say. The post was muddy and poorly written. A doctrinaire approach isn't the answer to anything. You could theoretically build an Open Source bridge, but you'd add a large upfront evaluative requirement with no guarantee of any significant gain. You're likely to obtain a less taxing and more successful result by tendering a competition that encourages imagination and innovation among professionals. Granted, you may not get that outlier result that nobody ever thought of, but you will have a much more efficient process. The problem with Wikipedia is inefficiency. The same could be said of Open Source. Actually, in the absence of a Torvalds-like leader, the same could become true of Linux. The Java community always seems to be going through some form of navel-gazing. Even Microsoft is troubled by internal spasms, generated from within its vast network of programmers and their associations. Microsoft's software community is large enough to be considered an Open Source of its own, and it too has demonstrated failures of vision and leadership, despite years of effort in luring the best and brightest. The falloff began in the mid-nineties, as the early coders delegated responsibility, and ceased to be hands-on shepherds to the projects they once so brilliantly executed. Success doesn't seem to have a formula, but there are truisms. Yes to openness and innovation. Yes to strong leadership and clear direction. Yes to recognition of what works, and getting behind it strongly. Yes to exclusion of nonessentials. The belief that Somebody Out There has a better idea is foundational in our society. The roots of Open Source lie in many disparate areas, some sociological, some practical, some quasi-humanistic and theoretical. In many ways, Open Source reminds me of Chairman Mao's Great Cultural Revolution: "Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom". Jim