What Business Can Learn From Open Source

Paul Graham has written quite the essay extolling the virtues of open source and blogging (and I would add wikis and other social computing to the mix) for business. He asserts that the biggest lesson open source and blogging has to teach business isn't about technology -- it's about the forces that have been driving the movements. Blogging and open source leverage the web as a platform to foster collaboration -- bringing people together to do things they love to do, for free -- unlike business, where people don't necessarily work on the things they love. Working for the love of it always produces results that surpass what business can produce. Graham takes a swipe at the professionals -- their elitism, culture and environment -- and what they have achieved with business. He believes that their culture is rapidly being surpassed by a culture of collaboration and cooperation -- where real results are being achieved, by ordinary people, doing the extraordinary -- working. Graham feels, and rightly so, that a lot of time is wasted by business, by professionals, in the 9-to-5 day of pretending they are accomplishing things. Business directives are handed down from a central authority -- quite the opposite in open source and blogging, where it's more like the market economy -- or Darwinism -- the better ideas, the better products are the ones that are adopted, strengthened and fostered. Think of it as social capitalism.

The article is filled with ideas that have been percolating for a while. Graham has done a good job articulating the revolution that has been happening -- it's effects are being felt socially, economically and even politically. It threatens to change the world -- and along the way some old prejudices are being removed.