For years the FOSS crowd has prattled on with slogans like "Why Open Source Software Can Succeed," "Voices From a Revolution," or "FOSS is More Innovative;" but when is this all going to happen?

Beer might be free (somehow) by the time FOSS lives up to its marketing ploys (which is never), but I'm not sure whether free beer or unglamorized technology development would be better for society after this glorious revolution.

Evidently, the FOSS Penquin is not quite ready for the pinstripes of Wall Street. Perhaps its because FOSS firms have actually started believing themselves that non-monetary exchanges are more efficient and uncorrupted than monetary exchanges, and now don't want to succeed on Wall Street. Or perhaps, normal folks have quietly realized service businesses don't represent any meaningful freedom or religious value over software/ hardware models, thus the whole revolutionary banter does not sell at a place like Wall Street.

If you come up with every reason why FOSS can succeed and it DOESN'T then you missed a couple things... like the market, innovation, consumers.

Don't get me wrong. FOSS won't go away, but to grow beyond its current state, it will have to adopt formal capital structures of some traditional businesses, and leverage integration with proprietary technologies. The one thing holding back FOSS from making these steps right now is itself.

posted by Noel Le @ 5:59 PM | Free Culture Movement

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