Salon: Crafting the free-software future

[ Thanks to Guin for this link.
]

“Since launching in January 2000, SourceForge, which is
sponsored by open-source hardware and services provider VA Linux,
has attracted 125,000 software developers, say company
representatives. The site added more than 17,000 software
developers just between Jan. 18 and Feb. 21 and has been averaging
monthly growth of more than 30 percent. SourceForge, says John T.
Hall, vice president for strategic planning at VA Linux, is close
to eclipsing IBM as the world’s largest community of software
programmers.”

“But size isn’t the only thing that matters about SourceForge.
To some observers, the community of developers that has gathered
together at SourceForge represents nothing less than the latest
stage of the evolution of free software. It’s a focal point for all
the world-wide energy flowing out of hackers and into code that
everyone can share. Eric Raymond, co-founder of the Open Source
Initiative, a prominent advocate for open-source software and a
member of the VA Linux board of directors, says the site is as
significant to the open-source movement as the creation of Linux —
which focused the efforts of thousands of volunteer computer coders
worldwide.”

“(Linux) created a kind of social synergy,” Raymond says.
“SourceForge is having the same effect.”

“Even so, Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software
Foundation, believes that SourceForge’s emphasis on the pragmatic
open-source approach to software development distracts programmers
from the altruistic principles at the heart of free
software….”

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