What Business Can Learn from Open Source by Paul Graham
As usual Paul Graham’s new article is a great read.
I think the most important of the new principles business has to learn is that people work a lot harder on stuff they like. Well, that’s news to no one. So how can I claim business has to learn it? When I say business doesn’t know this, I mean the structure of business doesn’t reflect it.
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When I’m writing or hacking I spend as much time just thinking as I do actually typing. Half the time I’m sitting drinking a cup of tea, or walking around the neighborhood. This is a critical phase– this is where ideas come from– and yet I’d feel guilty doing this in most offices, with everyone else looking busy.
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How many of us have heard stories of employees going to management and saying, please let us build this thing to make money for you– and the company saying no? The most famous example is probably Steve Wozniak, who originally wanted to build microcomputers for his then-employer, HP. And they turned him down. On the blunderometer, this episode ranks with IBM accepting a non-exclusive license for DOS.
On the point of the first bit of text above, W. Edwards Deming stressed the importance of Joy in Work. How many buisnesses focus on this. Very few. So often, it is easier to keep doing what has been done in the past.
July 15th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
We spend much of our life at work: we deserve to have pride in what we do and even enjoy it (shocking I know).
December 1st, 2007 at 10:41 am
I don’t see any problem making money in efforts involving open source efforts but I do believe that as that happens an obligation (perhaps not legal but real none-the-less) grows to give back to the community (Google’s summer of code is a great example of giving back).