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Re: Flaps about flops
Mr. Searls, Thank you for this post and the one on Market Relativity. It sure seems rare to hear folks tell it like it is. Thought your analogy of the software and contruction industries was very interesting, as well as the discussion that followed. Have to think about that some more. What I REALLY liked was how you pointed out the fantasies that have driven the OSS movement. And the tragedies that ensued. ~~~ But you stumped me when you said "But take away all the stupid investing, all the politics, all the adversarial talk, all the distrust and blame, what do you have with open source?" IMNSHO, that was the biggest fantasy of all. You can't take away all the stupid investing, politics, and adversarial talk.. the distrust and blame. That's what all organizations become, once they reach a certain size. You aren't going to defeat human nature with the OSS movement... Sorry. The OSS movement worked well on a very small scale. But the success of OSS soon allowed it (forced it) to grow past the size where it worked well. The theory was that, if OSS was based on altruism, the old business-as-usual wouldn't apply...
That fantasy has clearly been proven false. ~~~ I s'pose I should say "IMHO", (although I don't think it's a matter of opinion at all), but the idea that OSS provides "a building method — a way to build stuff." Well.. that's patently false, as well. As Mr. Winer basically said, what the OSS movement has accomplished is taking the customer out of the equation. That's the point I take from your Market relativity post: the OSS movement works well when the "customers" are the guys who both use and code the stuff...
Point being, that's a very limited market... Such an extremely small segment of the total market, that it's currently the choke-point of the OSS movement. (That isn't a trend.. that's what has happened...)
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