Re: Companies Contributing to Open Source

Jonah H. Harris wrote:

> The title of the document, "How Companies Can Effectively Contribute
> To Open Source Communities" doesn't seem to fit the content. I would
> consider something more along the lines of, "Enterprise Open Source:
> Effectively Contributing Commercial Support to Open Source
> Communities", or, "What to Expect when Contributing to Open Source
> Projects". More specifically, I'd restrict the document to PostgreSQL
> because it really doesn't represent the majority of open source
> software communities which tend to be commercially-driven.

I agree that there are a lot of open source "communities" which are
setup in the other way you describe, the non-PostgreSQL way. However I
wouldn't go as far as saying that the 99% of the OSS projects are.
Linux (the kernel), Gnome, KDE are counterexamples -- no single company
could ever dream of improving their products at the rate those projects
do. I think the element in common in all these projects is that there
are multiple companies cooperating to see them progress; cooperating
with each other, and with individual developers. As the project
matures, more developers join, the companies hires some of them and let
them work on the project, and more companies join. If a single company
leaves it may hinder development but it's not the doom of the project.
This is in stark contrast with one-manned projects or single-company
projects.

--
Alvaro Herrera http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc.