> Open source has seen a rapid expansion in the past decade My primary experience of open source software in France is of a French software product manager who

> Open source has seen a rapid expansion in the past decade My primary experience of open source software in France is of a French software product manager who worked with a German tech lead. The product manager got the German programmer to open up the API of that product to allow plugins, which a Russian innovator promptly made use of to build some useful addon software. The French manager put the German into unrelated consulting work, then hired a mate, also from France, as a second programmer to duplicate the functionality of the addon and bundle it as part of the product, killing the market for the addon. Having diluted the importance of the German to the product, he stopped using his "tech lead" title and started promoting his own name on the product instead of the two technical workers. Perhaps the rapid expansion is based on an patriotist old boys network helping each other out rather than innovation and marketing.