Open Source is Having a Moment
The sociology of the bazaar model has been a tech industry blind spot. New biz models in the space will drive the digital economy.
Marc Andreesen’s pronouncement of “software is eating the world” has become somewhat of a cliché by now, hurled by every ambitious startup founder or budding tech entrepreneurs in conferences and mission statements. Whatever your ideological position on the ever-ascending role of the tech industry in all spheres of human affairs, the incontrovertible fact is that the ingestion of the world — by software — has led to profound shifts in business, politics and culture.
But what is software? What is code? For people whose professional lives do not revolve around wrangling code in some form, it’s a kind of sorcery or alchemy, where instead of trying to convert lead into gold, practitioners of this art form turn the English language into logical instructions that get converted into ones and zeroes, that go on to control everything — from our financial transactions to tracking our online shipments, and rendering viral TikTok videos on our phones.
In the age of hyper financialization, where the majority of tech press attention goes into which company has reached unicorn status or on the next big IPO, so little is talked about the…
