"Critics of open source software have argued that, from an
economic standpoint, 'giving the product away' makes no sense. As a
new business model, open source has been the victim of many
misconceptions and mischaracterizations: that it's the equivalent
of communism, that's it's like a virus, and that it's economically
dangerous to society, for example. In such a hostile atmosphere,
it's not easy to objectively assess a new paradigm that differs
greatly from the status quo. However, though a comparable model may
not exist in the IT sector, a parallel working model for open
source already exists in at least one other field, biomedical
research, and this model has been proven to be of great benefit to
society.
"I am a pediatric oncologist, and I don't pretend to have any
proficiency at programming or hacking. But to paraphrase our
favorite paralegal open source advocate, research is what pediatric
oncologists do..."
