The Meaning of Open Source

“Like many Linux Journal readers, I have been upgrading
my Gibbons to Herons recently. And like many readers, I imagine, I
have been finding a few little challenges along the way. That was
no surprise, since it’s pretty much par for the course when
carrying out a major upgrade. But something else did surprise me,
although in retrospect I see that it shouldn’t have.

“To begin with, I tried to fix things that the upgrade threw up
on my own. I reasoned–somewhat optimistically, perhaps–that it
was just a matter of applying some logic. But then I realised that
this was a stupid thing to do–real closed-source thinking. After
all, one of the central ideas behind open source is that if we
collaborate, and build on the work of others, less effort will be
required from each of us, and the end-result will be better. What
was the point of re-inventing this particular wheel if others had
been there before me…?”

Complete
Story