It is time to put duct tape on the mouths of the zealots on both sides and have a real debate about Open Source code and propriety code. Both sides vehemently argue that their solution is the best. Honestly, it comes down to what works. I have used software that I had to pay for that did not work worth a damn and I have used Open Source software that I have had the same problem with.

I will admit that sourceforge.net is one of my favorite Web sites and I work for a company that is very dedicated to Open Source, but I am also Microsoft certified. At my company, we almost all use Mac or Microsoft operating systems to get our work done. So, as you can see, I have associations with both sides of the aisle. I do believe this is good for the industry because the competition drives everyone to produce a better product and makes the market more healthy.

We passed through some years where the monopoly held by some companies seems to have stagnated the growth of software development. Look at the browser as an example. We sat at IE 6 for a long time, then Mozilla came along and spun up Firefox and now we have IE 7 on the horizon. Thus, we can draw from this that Open Source competing with established ‘closed’ source systems has enabled evolution - creating, we hope, better software.

You can also point to innovation in Open Source just by looking into sourceforge at all the different projects, like Sugar CRM, that are spurred on by proprietary solutions. So one could argue that one software model is not necessarily better than the other or the only way to develop code, but having both options available makes each better.

[John Anthony Hartman]