Is Open Source The Salvation Army Of Software?

from the get-rid-of-your-junk dept

When you have old clothes and furniture you want to get rid of, you donate it to the Salvation Army. Paul Krill is now asking if the same thing is happening with old software, but instead of donating it to the Salvation Army, companies are simply offering it up as open source. He points to a variety of recent high profile "open source" announcements from companies, including today's deal for AOL to sell Netscape's server technology to Red Hat, who will open source it (a slightly different deal that the others, in that this one was sold -- though, some folks have noticed that this is actually the second time AOL has sold this technology). It's an interesting theory, and it's not necessarily a bad idea. If companies no longer want to support applications, why not just open source it and see what the community can do? Also, it can't harm the open source community, but could help them by giving them more access to technology that could be helpful in a variety of projects -- even if it's a little old (and faded around the edges).

6 Comments | Leave a Comment..


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  1.  

    What about upgrading this site to current fashion?

    identicon
    dorpus, Sep 30th, 2004 @ 11:52pm

    Newer forum software lets people add pictures, edit their comments after posting, auto-quote, use different fonts. This site feels very old fashioned.

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  

    Re: What about upgrading this site to current fash

    identicon
    Oliver Wendell Jones, Oct 1st, 2004 @ 10:09am

    And while you're at it, add a comment rating feature so that we can all Mod Dorpus's comments down so that we don't have to see them any more...

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  

    Re: What about upgrading this site to current fash

    identicon
    dorpus, Oct 1st, 2004 @ 10:30am

    To become even more like slashdot? No, I would add person filters so we don't have to read juvenile comments from you.

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  

    D-chip

    identicon
    florpus, Oct 1st, 2004 @ 6:49pm

    Is it true that Congress is planning to mandate a D-chip in new computers to filter out dorpus postings?

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  5.  

    Re: D-chip

    identicon
    dorpus, Oct 1st, 2004 @ 9:03pm

    Is it true that Oliver and dorpus are really the same person?

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  6.  

    OS is not free

    identicon
    Espen Andersen, Oct 3rd, 2004 @ 12:25am

    Here we go again, comparing Open Source to donations to the Salvation Army. Open Source does not mean free or given away - just a different way to manage your IP. Look at Trolltech (www.trolltech.com) as an example - a commercial Open Source company (which, incidentally, releases a new version every day)

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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