Understanding open source

A guy from Sun responsible for Suns managing http://www.sunsource.net/ and participating in developing Suns Open Source strategy is here to explain to us different strategies and approaches for dealing with open source. He starts explaining to us the shift from to the consumer age to the participation age. The key is to understand that certain events changes the way we think about stuff. I think the point he is getting to is the way that Open Source has changed the way we think about software. Various patent models and how large corporations think regarding licensing and patents is also interesting.

Simon Phipps also believes that we will stop paying for using software in advance, and shift towards paying when it adds value. It would be interesting to see how such policies might be enforced. As a consultant I play a role in providing business value through adapting and creating software, not through the software itself, so this is an interesting thing.

Open source communities is based on a casual allignment of interests Phipps concludes.

Would be interesting to discuss further how it is possible to actually charge for software when it adds value and beyond simple scenarios like the number of customers or the number of employees in the company that bought the software. Neither of these marketing models are sufficient to define market value.