The Economist weighs in on the Open Source phenomenon, and finds it wanting. In a recent article entitled Open But Not As Usual, the Economist outlines some of the achievements of Open Source, some dubious on-goings and concludes with some cautionary notes.
The shining stars of the open source movement are portrayed as Apache, which hosts more than 2/3 of all websites, and Wikipedia the free online encyclopedia with more than 2.6 million entries. Open Source’s failings and vulnerabilities, in the magazine’s view, include not only a variation on the theme of too many cooks spoil the broth, but also that some of the cooks are crooks. A complementary if more personal perspective is provided by The Open Source Heretic.
Open Source is of course viewed as socialist and cooperative in its essence, and The Economist, seemingly troubled by the lack of funds changing hands, can’t quite comprehend why the apparently unmotivated and the probably unwashed continue to contribute.
Open, but not as usual – The Economist, Mar 16th 2006
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