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All companies that embrace open source do it because it's good for business. It's a seemingly unlimited resource that accounts for billions (made up number, fee
by staticassertion 8y ago
All companies that embrace open source do it because it's good for business. It's a seemingly unlimited resource that accounts for billions (made up number, feels reasonable) of dollars of unpaid labor.
It was always stupid to be against OSS from a business perspective and so long as developers hand over their IP on a platter it always will be - Microsoft would be really stupid to turn away free money, and they seem to realize this now.
- woah 8y agoThe idea that open source involves “handing over ip on a platter” is what’s stupid here. The vast majority of open source code is developed on the job. The fact that it’s open source means that the developer can take it with them when they leave and possibly even get some name recognition from it. If it was closed source, the developer would be handing it over on a platter to their employer, never to be seen again.
- mjburgess 8y agoThat's a very contemporary development. Open source was originally hobbyist, research or academic. Often, it was "programmer solve thyself". Businesses have only been employing significant numbers to work on open source projects for the last decade.
- dboreham 8y ago2 decades
- staticassertion 8y agoSo are you saying that we don't encourage unpaid labor with open source? Are you saying that companies choose OSS for non-business reasons?