“Bruce Perens and Tim O’Reilly have engaged in an interesting
and contentious debate on the notion of gated software communities.
While both have thoughtful points of view, both ultimately fall
prey to a common misconception about open source business models.
The naive reader of these two essays could easily come to the
conclusion that a commitment to open source must be a charitable
act motivated by an ideological notion of what is politically and
morally correct, and that this commitment inevitably conflicts with
self-interested business practices. The truth is quite the
opposite.“
“Bruce’s sin is the lesser here, and at least consistent with
his earlier views. So let me start there.”
“A gated software community is one in which the copyright holder
of a particular piece of software and the licensed users of that
software share source code, changes, updates, and can redistribute
among themselves, but do not share or redistribute outside that
group.”