Tim O'Reilly: Open-source purists trying to answer the wrong question

Jun 16, 2009, 15:31 (6 Talkback[s])
(Other stories by Matt Asay)

"Host Randal Schwartz kicks off the podcast with a question about Twitter: Is Tim concerned that "Twitter is anything but open?"

"I like to think I have a more nuanced view of open than a lot of people. Some purists will say that [I'm] a traitor....From the very beginning of my advocacy about open source, I've really just been interested in having interesting things happen in the world.

"The reason I like open source and worked on this idea of renaming it from "free software" to "open source" was because I don't think it's a religious issue. It's really about how do we actually encourage and spark innovation. Because for me a more interesting world is one where there's more innovation and more freedom to innovate....

"The idea is that people can build on it. You give it away because you want other people to do things with it that you can't do or don't want to do."

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