has been on my mind. Maybe I'm just getting tired of fighting with Windows on my computer. So I did a little digging around and ran across an interesting bit of academic research being done on the topic. My starting question is how did this whole open source software development craze get started and why?
Listen to this. Walt Scacchi, a senior research scientist at the University of California at Irvine's Institute for Software Research, has been looking at open-source projects from an analytical perspective, studying the open-source model in an ongoing, 10-year project that draws some comforting conclusions for open-source sponsors and developers.
Scacchi and fellow researchers have found a significant failure rate among open-source projects. But among those that get off the ground, research has shown not only that the open-source approach can yield better software more quickly and for less money than traditional methods but also that volunteering for an open-source project can be an effective way to get a job.
Often, Scacchi's work is as much sociological as technical, as he and colleagues examine phenomena like "community building" and cultural institutions alongside drier subjects like code and project design.
Go here to read more about the UC-I research.
And yes, this reinforces what network gurus like Cleveland's own Valdis Krebs and others have been telling us about the growing role (and importance) of social networks in practically all aspects of life.
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