A few weeks ago I got the opportunity to do a phone interview with Scott Swigart and Sean Campbell who are doing a series of interviews regarding How Software Is Built. The interview was a lot of fun and really hit around the general theme of how open source is changing the way software is created.
It is long, but I think it came out pretty well.
Jamie, I read this article yesterday and enjoyed it. Great interview!
Yeah, ditto, excellent interview. I especially agree with the bit about companies who use open source have a responsibility to contribute back to the community. I’d just add that contributing back in not simply an excercise in altruism. In the end, I think you end up with better developers in your company because they are exposed to different ideas and knowledge from the open source world. Without this exposure I think teams tend to get a bit calcified, recycling the same ways of thinking about things over and over which in the end, limits their ability to innovate.
I enjoyed reading this interview, particularly the asset/liability bit. Code is liability and tying that to the balance sheet is a new and important way of looking at software development (shops), I wish this was common knowledge and well understood across businesses.