Scott Karp posted a real "eye roller" of a post today suggesting that the problem of too much noise on the web should be solved by people not posting as much.  Here's the quote from his article called "Join The Web Content Conservation Movement"...

On the web, everyone can publish — which means we have more content than all the people consuming content on the web can possibly consume.

How did we deal with excesses from technology that damaged the environment? By starting a conservation movement. Remember those stickers encouraging you to turn out the lights?

So why not start a conservation movement on the web?

Next time you’re about to post something to your blog, or Twitter, or Flickr, or YouTube, or any of the 1,000 other publishing platforms, ask yourself this — does this really add value to the web? Or am I publishing just because I can?

That logic leads him to these conclusions

• Filtering the web instead of adding to the content noise works well for Google’s business
• Links are cheaper to produce
• Linking is a way for media companies to show their environmental responsibility on the web

I barely know where to begin here.

First, just because everyone CAN produce content does not mean everyone WILL produce content.  In fact, as any one who has ever run a blog or message board will tell you the majority of visitors prefer not to comment.  So making the jump that there will always be more content than people can possibly consume is kind of silly.

Second, who is to say that every piece of information doesn't add value to the web.  I've read tons of stories where people connect with an old friend via twitter and are elated to know the mundane details of that person's life.  So does that long lost friend's tweet about where he ate lunch add value to the web?  To at least one person it does.  So comparing that content to pollution is a flawed comparison because pollution isn't good for anyone where as random tweets always add value for someone.

Third, advising people to "link instead of write" isn't advice that anyone can realistically follow.   Professional sites like TechCrunch and ReadWriteWeb cover the same content but they also have unique readers who they can't just hand over to a competitors site.  A link is not cheaper to produce if it costs you a reader and that's exactly what each site would be risking if they simply stopped covering some stories.  Even if they didn't lose readers they'd be giving up ad revenue by losing half their page views. 

Finally, I strongly object to the idea that not posting on a story makes media companies "environmentally responsible"  I'm sorry but there aren't that many people who care that different news sites cover the same story.  In fact, if a news site chose to just link to another site's coverage I'd probably think less of them not more.  Their job is to cover the news not act as a aggregator. 

I don't want ReadWriteWeb or TechCrunch trying to be Google because I already have Google for that.  I want them out there covering the story and preserving my right to choose which coverage I decide to read.  It isn't their job to solve your information overload problem. 

Duncan Riley, of TechCrunch fame, has started putting up some short videos at dunchanriley.tv.  One of those videos in particular got my attention.  It's embedded below...

The video and specifically the assertion that "Open Source is communism" got me to thinking.  Thinking about the nature of Open Source, where it belongs, and why some projects work while others fail.

(For those who don't watch the video, Mr. Riley doesn't say Open Source is communism he just responds to someone else saying it)

Looking at What Works

I liked the choice of examples he used so I'm going to use them as well.  Here were his examples:

Those That Work: Firefox, MySQL, Linux

Those That Don't Work: Open Office

So the question is, why is software like Firefox exploding while OpenOffice flounders?

Its the Platform Stupid

When James Carville famously devised the statement "Its the Economy Stupid!" he added the "Stupid" because he was surprised no one in the Presidential Race was addressing what everyone outside the race already knew.  That people were worried about the economy.

Similarly, those in the open source world like to paint flowery pictures of selfless people working with no purpose other than charity.  But despite those flowery pictures most outside realize that open source projects succeed when people are motivated by self interest.  Firefox, Apache, Linux and their other LAMP brethren created platforms on which millions of applications run.  In turn, those application developers are dependent on the open source products being around. 

This motivates those developers to help out which keeps the products alive.

OpenOffice on the other hand is a largely a stand alone product.  You can build small Add-Ons but that functionality isn't enough to build an ecosystem of companies around it.  Which is why it flounders despite its potential and big company backing.

It isn't Communism it's Good Business

Getting back to the "Open Source is Communism" claim I think the above proves this isn't the case.  In fact, Capitalism is better served when companies embrace Open Source.

To give one example, its an enormous waste of money for Microsoft and Apple to both develop lower level functionality to interface with identical hardware.  No one buys an OS based on how elegantly it communicates with its serial bus.  If these companies agreed to share technology that was identical in both systems they could spend their money competing on the things that consumers actually care about.

(I realize this will almost certainly never happen but its a good example none the less)

The Software Industry is polluted with examples of companies doing more work than they need to by spending money on building things that already exist.  The tragedy, as in the above example, is that consumers don't care.  In fact, most consumers don't want companies to innovate in these areas.  Can you imagine a company that required its own web browser? 

This isn't new

I think the most important thing here is to put Open Source into its proper context.  Part of the problem is that people who love technology tend to see themselves as revolutionaries.  So you get Open Source advocates running around thinking they're changing the world when actually they're just catching up to it. 

Yes I said catching up to it.

You know what else is Open Source?  A Tire.  All cars use the same basic "Tire Technology"  Some have expanded on it (TripleTred, ComforTred, etc...) but in the end its the same tire underneath it all. 

You see, Open Source is actually a pretty old concept.

Technology and specifically the software industry trails behind other industries when it comes to making parts that are open and interchangeable.  Open Source isn't revolution its the same evolution that millions of other product types have gone through.  

Conclusion

Not only is Open Source not Communism it is really at the heart of Capitalism.  Capitalism is finding ways to make money as efficiently as possible.  Using common, open components is an easy way to do that.  Ask Steve Jobs how much money he saved by not having to start from scratch on OS X. 

(OS X is derived from an Open Source Unix variation for those who didn't know)

This type of development is inevitable in a capitalist system.  Every car company in existence uses the same type of tire because they have to.  If one company tried to resist they'd almost certainly go out of business because they'd have to spend exponentially more on R&D.  As time goes on I think Open Source will play a bigger and bigger role in the software industry for just that reason. 

Don't get me wrong, there will always be parts of software that rely on closed source just as there is still proprietary technology in cars.  But I think you'll eventually see those closed source implementations resting on an Open Source Foundation and the consumer will be better off for it. 

One Final Note

The above post is a generalization and like all generalizations it has exceptions. 

There will always be people coming up with new business models and that's part of what makes a capitalist system great.  So Matt Mullenweg may very well make money by running a hosted version of his Open Source software and that's great.  If Wordpress can be successful through only one company (as opposed to building a platform) more power to them.  But exceptions to a rule don't invalidate the rule itself. 

I think I do my best work after coming home on Saturday Night.  But then I think, do I ACTUALLY do my best work or do I just THINK I do?  Then I just decide to stop thinking about it altogether and go to sleep.