Austin Holdsworth

London, UK.

Freelance Consultant

I think Martin’s article gives us some interesting statistics and goes some way to explaining the motivation behind why the open source movement continues to flourish. I also understand his frustration at the range of diverse projects that don’t collaborate. However I think there are more reasons that can explain why projects diversify and often in competition with each other, which don’t involve geek stereotypes.

Diversification is at the heart of fundamental open source philosophy, which I think will eventually be recognised as its greatest strength. The evolution of OS software by means of diversification and failure ensures the survival of the fittest. Competition is a good motivator for both individuals and organisations to make better software.

Highly collaborative efforts are evident in sponsored projects because the developers themselves are usually selected experts. Most of the spin-off projects, or forks, come about because somebody with less programming experience wanted to hack the code in a free and undemocratic manner for reasons of self-indulgent modifications and as a learning experience. They also probably want to hide they're coding initially because it may expose their poor skills and damage their reputation.

Ultimately "competing" projects still tend to boil down to a single clear winner. And more often than not, the one time rivals will join forces on making the strongest project stronger. Take the Beryl / Compiz projects as an example. Or they separate because they want to pursue a different ideology or political direction, as in the Mambo and Joomla or SugarCRM and Vtiger projects.

cont...