The Open Source Corporation

I write this with much trepidation. Unlike the typical business book that tries to describe what is – mine is much more ambitious – what will be. I do not purport or practice any type of mysticism, a glance into the future. My claim is far more modest (and dangerous); after 30 years in the consulting business – my intuition has been right most times. I have forecasted in conversations with clients and colleagues the rational extension of current trends. We have all done this only to be disappointed by our own inaction – “I could have done that.”

The difference here is the lack of theory. Oh, I will support every idea and opinion with facts, but the book is not written for you; it is written for me and is the script for an essential component of our startup – the open source knowledge guild. I will relate the good, the bad, and the ugly as I build one of the first true open source corporation. I can only hope you learn as much as I do.

Scene One
The idea first came to me when reading a story on Linus Tovards – the kernel that grew the fruit known as Linux. I read his story of building software that openly shares the operating code and therefore it’s intellectual property. What a departure from the history of software development at Microsoft and Apple. Both organizations jealously guarded their “codex” to preserve intellectual property rights. Although Microsoft did share it with carefully selected partners, Apple did not and the outcome in this tightly controlled market is Microsoft 92 – Apple 8.

However, what Tovards was suggesting was radically different – intellectual property rights replaced by the public commons. The question I asked myself as a businessman and confirmed capitalist – how do they make money?