Saturday, April 24, 2010

Why Open Source is good

I'm reading The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything by Ken Robinson, PhD. On page 117 of the paperback there is a discussion about communities of interest and what makes for genuine science. Since computing is one of the sciences, I thought it the best short argument for Open Source one could make. Robinson quotes from Michael Polyani:

"Scientists, freely making their own choice of problems and pursuing them in the light of their own personal judgement are in fact cooperating as members of a closely knit organization....Any attempt to organize the group...under a single authority would eliminate their independent initiatives and thus reduce their joint effectiveness to that of the single person directing them from the center. It would in effect, paralyze their cooperation."

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