Open Source as a management system

There is a belief that open source has no limits, no laws, no regulations and no monopolies – that its the wild west of software development. Actually I think that is far from the reality. My sense is that they different from proprietary software, commercially developed applications in the following sense:

1. Commercial software: This is software developed by businesses who are pursuing profit objectives
1. Financed by shareholders, creditors and users (purchasers)
2. Rigid goals and business structures
3. Creativity is sponsored by seniors so not well-supported
4. Greater financial constraints and struggles to prioritise goals
5. Software limited by funding so develop narrow specific market-orientated applications
6. Creativity is defined by business owners, who may or may not be programmers, who may or may not be empathetic to the needs of users
2. Open source software: This is software developed by businesses who are pursuing creativity objectives
1. Financed by generosity of developers offering time & contributors offering money, who are more often than not users
2. Flexible goals & deadlines and flat organisational structures
3. Creativity goals are sponsored by developers so well supported
4. Fewer financial constraints means the product develops in multiple ways
5. Creativity is defined by developers at the expense of useability. Users without programming skills struggle with these platforms, reducing the market reach of these products
   

The ‘Open Source’ management system is superior because it is less constrained by financial issues, but in these early stages its dominance by developers has meant they have failed to develop product that is user-friendly. For this reason products like Joomba and Drupal have not attracted the market or success that they should have given their great functionality. We can expect them to address their useability issues in coming years as the open source community becomes exposed to more criticism.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com