Headline, November26, 2013

''' OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE 

MOVEMENT : yawn-YO-YO -yowl '''

A STANDING OVATION : In all and every fairness, the open source software movement has been one of the great successes of the digital age.

Open source projects such as the Linux operating system and the Apache Web server    -as we learn nearly every time we pick up a business publication,......

have turned the efforts of a widely distributed group of programmers, who contribute those efforts free,  into world class products.

Yet when we look closely at the open source ecosystem, a very different picture emerges:

For example, the world's largest open source source, ''Sourceforge'', hosts more than 100,000  projects, and its most popular software is downloaded thousands of times daily.

But most projects have never broken a hundred downloads, and more than half are simply inactive : a project was proposed, but nothing happened.

If the vast majority of open source projects are failures, has the press been wrong to emphasize the movements few successes? The answer is -obviously and measurably  -yes. 

So can businesses that face seemingly formidable competition from existing or future open system breathe easy?

Absolutely Not.  Open source systems are a profound threat not only because they outsucceed commercial firms but also because they outfail them. They grow not in spite of failure but because of it.

In traditional business, trying anything is expensive, even if only in staff time spent discussing the idea; so some advance attempt to distinguish the successes from the failures is required.

Even at firms committed to experimentation, considerable effort is has to go into reducing the likelihood of failure. And because green-lighting ideas that turn to be failures will be noticed more than killing radical but promising ones, many people err on the side of caution.

In open systems, by contrast, the cost of failures is reduced, partly because less coordination is required among the various players and partly because each player is willing to accept some of the risks of failure directly.

this means that worrying about whether a new idea will succeed is unnecessary; you simply try it out.  The institutional barrier between thought and action   -the need to convince someone that your idea is worth giving a whirl   -doesn't exist.

The low cost of trying means that participants can fail like crazy as they continue to build on their successes.

In systems where anyone can try anything, the good has to be filtered from the bad after the fact......................!!

The Post continues.

With respectful dedication to all the Thinkers, Technologists, Architects,  Programmers, Technicians, and Great Heroes and Abstractionists who built the edifice of this movement.

Concomitantly, most loving and respectful dedication to all the Girl-Students, all the Female Students of the entire world, for their sufferings, sacrifices and march onwards.

Malala, Mariam, Rabo, Dee, Maham, Mahnoor, Anum. Ufaira, Areesha, Saima, Sameen, Talat, Zainab Khan, Shazia Gul, Salma Atif, Irum Khan, Farzana Khan, Amina Khan, Fatimah, Shazia Naveed, Safia Nadeem, Ayesha Quadari, Sumeria, Aliyia, Ayesha Naeem, Anne, Paras, Sorat, Zeba, Aqsa and 4.3 billion more.

''' !WOW! salutes you ALL! '''

See Ya all on the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless :

''' We're all about open source '''

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless