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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Haven’t seen much activity on this list for a while.
Is this list dead, or are we all just very busy?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>An interesting story: without naming names, a friend of mine
is starting a business. He is developing a platform that will use Drupal as the
framework to deliver a specialized service and putting a lot of work into it. Part
of his hook is that he will not be open sourcing some of the custom modules
which are part of the platform in order to maintain a competitive advantage
(i.e., if someone else wants to get into this market, they would have to build
something themselves).<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>While I see the benefits of this from a business standpoint,
it does raise an interesting question about proprietary software. One of the
main advantages of open source is the cost of labor, you can have dozens of
people worldwide working on the same piece of software. Supposedly, the quality
of the product goes up as it filters through peer review and the expertise of
multiple individuals. The particular modules this person is working on are not
really ‘understood’ by the Drupal community (otherwise, someone
else would have already built them). What I am trying to wrap my head around
is, does losing this advantage detract from any others? Does losing peer review
and contributed labor undermine other advantages to open sourcing a creation? From
a programmers perspective, I can’t really understand why he’s
choosing a proprietary route for development other than the idea that few
others would really be interested in working on this particular module.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Thank
you,<br>
Michael Haggerty<br>
Managing Partner<br>
Trellon, LLC<br>
</span></font><a href="http://www.trellon.com"><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>http://www.trellon.com</span></font></a><br>
<font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>(p)
301-577-6162<br>
(c) 240-643-6561<br>
(f) 413-691-9114<br>
(aim) haggerty321</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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