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by James Robertson.
Original Post: Open Source Innovation
Feed Title: Cincom Smalltalk Blog - Smalltalk with Rants
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Feed Description: James Robertson comments on Cincom Smalltalk, the Smalltalk development community, and IT trends and issues in general.
Scott Knowles quotes some interesting points on innovation and openness. The example is in manufacturing, but the point covers software as well:
Patent and copyright laws protect the first to claim legal ownership, but deny the origins of their work and, as badly, forestall future improvements by others.
That's an excellent - and all too unheard - observation. Sure, most people will never look at the source and try to make changes. But if you allow it, some will. An awful lot of the most useful things in VisualWorks arrived through the work of outsiders - because of the fact that VW - commercial and NC - ships with full sources.
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