Is Open Source an Open Bar in the Cloud?

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A tweet by Lance Walter got me thinking:

lancewalter: People like the Cloud’s disruptive “pay-per-drink” model. Reaffirms my belief that great tech ideas are often conceived in bars.

I replied quickly:

ydemontcheuil: @lancewalter #opensource: “free as in free speech, not as free beer”. #cloud: “pay per beer”. You’re right about bars. Can we get open bar?

And then I started to think.* That’s the beauty of real-time marketing: you act, then you think. And then you say, geez I wished I did not write that, it’s already replicated on millions of servers worldwide and will stain my record forever.* No biggie in this case.

So, people often think of open source as free, and then we explain that it’s free as in free speech, not free as in free beer. And everyone knows that there is no such thing as free beer - brewers are in it to make money.* When beer is free, it means that someone else is paying for it - for example when you have an open bar.

Look at the Cloud now. Lance uses the pay-per-drink analogy. This is more of a cash bar approach.* You drink all you want, you don’t need to order in advance or even plan on how much you will need to drink. And you don’t need to wait for the waiter to make rounds and take your order.* Just get to the source, use what you need when you need it.

Where does open source tie in with the Cloud?* We all know that open source powers the Cloud. Like the cash bar and open bar models, they do not oppose one another but rather complement each other nicely.

Where is that taking us?* I am not so sure now… I had a hunch this analogy was interesting.* Maybe if other people give it some thinking, we could build an interesting open source analogy, like Eric Raymond’s The Cathedral and the Bazaar or James Dixon’s Beekeeper Model…

Yves

Disclaimer: I wasn’t drunk when I wrote this. Maybe jet lagged and sleep deprived, but definitely not drunk.




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