Is Open Source The Salvation Army Of Software?

Ramblings

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).