A week or so ago, I had lunch with a client who develops software, much of it based on Linux. I asked for his opinion on Open Source Software and software patents.
He was of the feeling that nothing innovative has come from Open Source Software, nor will it ever. He cited several examples, including Linux, where a viable and useful piece of commercial software had been rewritten by OSS developers and released for free.
Where is the advancement of technology when OSS developers are spending their time rewriting code that already exists in commercial packages?
One of my commenters suggested this article claiming that there has been between $172M and $600M of effort spent on developing and maintaining the Linux kernel. That seems like a tremendous amount of effort just to duplicate someone else’s work. For that kind of money, each developer could have purchased Unix and spent their time developing something innovative, rather than reinventing the wheel.
Open Source Software is a very interesting phenomenon. I have several clients that build products that either include Linux or are developed on the Linux platform. I also have a Gentoo Linux box to run MythTV. There is no doubt that it has made an impact in our economy.
However, as I look over the huge amount of Open Source Software available, most of the applications are rewritten versions of existing commercial software, not new and innovative programs. Why should our energies be spent reinventing the wheel?
