Stripped from /., a short exchange between Tim Bray and Joe Marini (Microsoft) on the need of business to close source in order to live. Tim says everything should be open, Joe replies that you have to close source to protect your investments and Tim counters that development is too complicated to take your competitor's free code and integrate it in your app (most of the time):
if the OpenOffice guys could download all of the Microsoft Office source code tomorrow, it would probably slow them down more than help them.
I like these posts cuz they're short and to the point -- and in my Monday morning stupor I read each post agreeing with each point as it came along (which I guess means I don't agree with Joe's since he didn't post last :-)
Tim also pushes Eric Raymond's The
Magic Cauldron as a pertinent essay on the topic.
tags: ComputersAndTechnology
