I’m not here to defend capitalism, only to say that capitalism and open source have had a more complicated relationship than that.
The Apache HTTP Server was the preeminent dot-com era open source project. It’s hard to imagine the dot-com boom without it. People seem to forget that it was corporate open source. It was “a patchy server” developed (from NCSA HTTPd) and maintained largely by internet startups like Organic, Inc. Many other critical components of the dot-com tech stack were similarly developed.
The project is jointly managed by a group of volunteers located around the world, using the Internet and the Web to communicate, plan, and develop the server and its related documentation.
This is what I mean though. Most groundbreaking development is done voluntarily or with public funds. It is antithetical to capitalism.
Capital comes in AFTER it is proven useful and/or profitable.
I’m not here to defend capitalism, only to say that capitalism and open source have had a more complicated relationship than that.
The Apache HTTP Server was the preeminent dot-com era open source project. It’s hard to imagine the dot-com boom without it. People seem to forget that it was corporate open source. It was “a patchy server” developed (from NCSA HTTPd) and maintained largely by internet startups like Organic, Inc. Many other critical components of the dot-com tech stack were similarly developed.
This is what I mean though. Most groundbreaking development is done voluntarily or with public funds. It is antithetical to capitalism.
Capital comes in AFTER it is proven useful and/or profitable.