Comments on: Alan Cooper: Open-Source is a Sign of Failure

By: Alastair Revell

Alastair Revell — Mon, 12 May 2008 15:14:17 +0000

I’m assuming that the failure is that of the managements who employ those who work on open source work in their own time. Any management that improves their product with little cost is clearly onto a good thing…

By: Hans-Eric

Hans-Eric — Mon, 12 May 2008 14:30:34 +0000

Exactly, but it’s important to point out that the thesis of management failure could only be valid for a (small?) subset of open source work. A lot of work done in open source projects these days are in fact made by companies who are actively using the open source code in their own products.
That is not a sign of management failure but rather a sign of success for the open source idea.

By: Alastair Revell

Alastair Revell — Mon, 12 May 2008 14:02:54 +0000

I think open source work certainly is related to volunteer work because people engage in it without expecting the traditional rewards such as a salary. They become involved in it because it aligns with their own interests, aspirations and ideals; and are often extremely committed to the voluntary work they do.

I believe many businesses fail to harness their employees’ enthusiasm, skills and passion, so they look for outlets elsewhere.

This seems to be borne out by some of the other comments here.

To that extent, I think Alan Cooper is right to highlight it as a management failure issue.

By: Hans-Eric

Hans-Eric — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:40:17 +0000

Insightful comment (as always). I guess open-source in many ways is related to volunteer work.

By: Alastair Revell

Alastair Revell — Fri, 09 May 2008 19:18:00 +0000

I found myself agreeing with you once again!

Your article also resonated with me in a non-computing sphere. I’ve worked extensively with charities in executive roles as a volunteer myself. One thing that often perplexed the employers of the volunteers that I was managing was the amount of energy, passion, commitment and sheer achievement their staff brought to bear on their voluntary work, in comparison to what they did in their employed 9am-5pm day job.

I believe that businesses (especially those involved in knowledge work) have a great deal to learn from voluntary working environments. The economy is slowly shifting, as we all know, from an industrial economy to a knowledge economy, where the power will be in the hands of the knowledge worker rather than those that own the “factories”.

By: Hans-Eric

Hans-Eric — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:15:14 +0000

Exactly, that’s why Google is such a great example. They create a win-win situation. The employee gets happy, since he or she gets to set up personal projects that they can work on part-time (one day a week). In fact, it’s mandatory.
Google wins big time since it’ll automatically get the best innovative ideas and turn them into products.
Who can get bored in a company like that?

By: Ray

Ray — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 19:59:02 +0000

Uuuuhhhh, read the article again. You’ve missed the point.

By: Christopher

Christopher — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:50:52 +0000

I think “that Open-Source is ultimately a symptom of management failure” is a mental example of when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail.

Mr. Cooper and you completely ignore the advantages and disadvantages of greed as a motivation, or the advantages and disadvantages of altruism as a motivation. Neither greed or altruism are good or bad, but as motivations they can and do produce different outcomes due to the internal logic that naturally develops in the process.

By: ryan

ryan — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:31:05 +0000

I think that your average geek does it so they can spread their wings a bit. If I only worked on what work had me do, all I’d know is Java and Grails (at least I got to learn Grails) but I’d miss out on PHP, Python, Ruby, etc…

How close minded these execs must be to assume all we want to do is the same boring thing day-in/day-out…being against that sort of thing will result in stagnant bored developers who rarely grown. Who wants those ppl lying around?

By: Paul W. Homer

Paul W. Homer — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 15:52:03 +0000

For me, my chief complaint — particularly with large companies — has been that they assign me to a specific ‘role’. I came from a mixed background of small and large companies. I’m used to being able to do my own: analysis, admin, management, planning, design, support, productization, etc. I’ve been through the full process from concept, selling, building, and deploying software.

It has become extremely hard for me to find jobs that even let me apply a fraction of that experience. Everybody just wants a project manager or a senior programmer or a business analyst or a pre-sales technical support person or etc. Mixing and matching is not allowed.

Paul.