“The next major wave in the open source movement is vertical
market applications. As Eric Raymond points out in The Magic
Cauldron. There is a fundamental flaw in the way software value is
perceived. Software is not a factory produced, assembly line
product . Only the packaging is.”
“Taking an existing vertical market application open source is
risky. A company considering this move will be concerned that their
hard earned intellectual property is now available for use by all
competitors. Even worse, by competitors that didn’t even exist
before the release. Therefore they must develop a solid plan to not
only maintain but increase their market share in a short period of
time.”
“The successful open source vertical market applications of the
future will be built from the ground up as an open source project
based on a loose set of requirements. A project basically built
around a goal with just enough specifics to get conversations
started. The project coordinator has to have a special set of
skills that encourage participation by a wide range of people.”