Recently, a friend sent me a link to the TED talk appearing below:

[ted id=2652]

I found the talk not only interesting, but also it made me think about the Open Source world, trying to apply the same concepts and thinking. I rapidly realised that the Open Source world also has its own set of Takers, Givers and Matchers.

So, let’s talk a little bit about Open Source Givers. The givers will be those who either initiate in open source project, constantly contribute to open source projects, preach and promote the usage of open source as a way of life and most importantly – they do so not because of a commercial or financial agenda – they do so because that’s what they believe in. These include people like John “Maddog” Hall, Linux Torvalds, Richard Stallman, Brian Kernighan, Dennis Ritchie and many others. These people operate under a premise that their work is vitally important, not the world, to mankind and the well being of others.

So, who are our Open Source takers? sorry to say, the number of Open Source takers is far greater than that of the givers. The takers are your “Script kiddies” or “Closed integrators”. Those people who use and abuse Open Source without acknowledging its existence.  In Israel, as an example, when Open Source was still in its infancy stage – people were roaming about claiming that they created a specific project or other. For example, I recall that in 2006, a company in Israel claimed it was the creator of Asterisk – and that their AMP based PBX system is their own creation. How Rude!

Who are your Open Source matchers? matchers are people who jump from being a giver and a taker according to their requirements. These people utilize open source projects, contribute code from time to time, promote the project – nominally due to a business reasoning – and these constitute a slightly bigger portion than the givers. While Open Source innovation relies on Givers, it’s progress into the business world and adaptation to the enterprise relies mostly on Matchers. Takers do not promote the Open Source industry, in some extreme cases, the actually harm the industry.

So, are you a giver, matcher or a taker?