sendmail.net: Silence Is Golden

[ Thanks to Mark
Durham for this link. ]

“Another Linux IPO, another quiet period. Red Hat, VA Linux,
and now Caldera: one by one they come to the well, prepare to sip,
and carefully zip their lips.“

“It’s not a giant leap for a proprietary technology company,
steeped in secrecy and suckled on NDAs, to clam up when
circumstances demand. But open source is a different animal,
nurtured on mailing lists and message boards and accustomed to
hashing out the most grisly disagreements in front of God and
everybody.”

“That’s partly a question of method: it’s a fundamental premise
of open source development that code thrives on broad scrutiny and
fervent debate. It’s also about identity: in the bazaar’s
prestige-driven gift economy, hiding your light under a bushel is
missing the point. Beyond that, the enterprise success of open
source stems from tireless viral marketing and rampant evangelism –
and with world domination almost within reach, silence chafes like
burlap briefs. Finally, and at the most basic level, it’s a
question of culture and of pleasure. At their best, the intertwined
streams of code and chat are Shakespearean in their richness –
prolific, hermetic, witty, vulgar, playful, arcane. It feels so
good, and it’s so hard to stop.”

“Tell it to the SEC.”

Complete
Story