Where there’s a social buzz around good open source code, there’s opportunity. And where there’s opportunity, there will be entrepreneurs. In fact, digital entrepreneurship is one of the most natural and predictable bi-products of the open-source movement. Although open source die-hards (myself included) associate the open source movement with “freedom”, we should never delude ourselves into thinking that “freedom” will always produce code that is “free.” I’ve never understood why some open-source advocates are so adamant about defending the concept of a free digital utopia. Drawing entrepreneurs to code is fundamental to innovation, community-building and sustainability of any open source platform. Here’s a few arguments why entrepreneurship around open source platforms should be encouraged:
Innovation Requires Time, Effort and (often) Capital
Let’s be real, there aren’t many people who are willing to take on complex problems for the fun of it. It’s not a question of coding for coding’s sake either, it’s that most people just don’t have the time, energy or resources to justify starting, even if they can see a clear solution to a well-defined problem. The opportunity cost associated with “diving in” is often too great. The opportunity to profit from an idea or solution, however, can create a powerful incentive that shifts priorities enough to turn someone (who may have never started) into an innovating entrepreneur.
Innovators Respond Well To Social Incentives
Sure, entrepreneurs are driven to innovate because of monetary incentives, but that’s not the whole story. Social status, power, connectedness and pride play a large part in the innovating process. Income generation is often just the spark that starts the creative flame, but once a project is in motion, other incentives provide a lot of the fuel that keeps things moving. Successful entrepreneurs know that they’re not going to just release code off into a vacuum. In today’s hyper-connected world, communities form around innovative code, especially if it solves a common problem or need well. The word gets out, traffic increases, communities form and innovators can become celebrities (sometimes overnight). Even at a basic level, the popularity that ensues creates a sense of achievement and recognition that all human beings strive for. The desire for status and connectedness can be a powerful incentive that not only pushes digital entrepreneurs towards great code around platforms and products, but drives community-building and overall sustainability around those platforms and products.
Entrepreneurs Put In Effort To Draw Crowds
Because of the above-stated social incentives, entrepreneurs who innovate around open source platforms have incentives to become agents that build communities. We’re all marketers of our own brand to some extent, but for innovators releasing code into the wild it’s especially true. Making a stable, consistent income “adding” to open source platforms results from a combination of (A) filling a need or solving a problem and (B) making sure A LOT of people who are having that need or problem know about you. The A + B combination results in crowds, which is definitely what you want around open source because a lot of eyes and scrutiny results in better code (that’s the theory at least) and patterns of improvement lead to sustainability.
The point I’m trying to make, of course, is that whether or not profiting from an idea was the spark that got someone to innovate should be irrelevant – the end goal should always be community-building, better code and sustainability of open source platforms. Entrepreneurs are, and will always be, agents of change because they have a unique set of incentives that drive innovation and community-building. Those who are pro-open source should recognize that those incentives can have great affects for everyone and not get so hung up on defending the “free” faith. If we try to squash incentives that drive entrepreneurship by requiring everything that is produced to be free, the end result will just be less innovation.
First off, congratulations are in order to my friends over at AdaptiveBlue. Not only have they surpassed the 1 million download mark this year, they’ve been recently highlighted by Richard MacManus, Founder of the the influential Read/WriteWeb blog, as one of 10 Semantic Web Apps to Watch.
Also, thanks to Fraser Kelton, Director of Business Development at AdaptiveBlue, for the gracious thank-you email I received this morning for my miniature contribution to the great work they’re doing as part of their xmas giving. It completely put me in the Christmas Spirit. I am totally psyched to receive and devour my en-route copy of Zen and The Art of Motorcyle Maintenance! Thanks so much guys!
In my final year of business school I remember being inundated with a lot of pre-interview advice and prep materials from my professors and from the feel-good folks at the career center. In retrospect I think a lot of it was supposed to serve as some sort of scare tactic – Prepare-them-for-the-worst kind of stuff. My favorite prep sheet was a grandiose list of questions you could be asked like If You Had To Move Mount Fuji, How Would You Do It? and What are 10 ways to use a pencil other than writing? While I’ve heard of people being stun-gunned with ridiculous questions like “What’s 1300 divided by 17″ in interviews, in a real-life situation, being on the other end of a question like that would make me curious about the real motivations of the interviewer. Should you really expect obscure test-your-mental-agility type questions in most interviews? The answer is no, and here’s a few reasons why.
a history of Enron’s downfall, The Smartest Guys in the Room…
After I had finally and fully admitted my mistake, I looked back upon the path that had led me to my Awful Realization. And I saw that I had made a series of small concessions, minimal concessions, grudgingly conceding each millimeter of ground, realizing as little as possible of my mistake on each occasion, admitting failure only in small tolerable nibbles. I could have moved so much faster, I realized, if I had simply screamed “OOPS!”
And I thought: I must raise the level of my game.
There is a powerful advantage to admitting you have made a large mistake. It’s painful. It can also change your whole life. Read More
