Money can’t buy open-source love… only code can
Money can't buy you happiness, but Meteor, a web-apps startup focused on enterprise app development, seems to think it can buy it an open-source community.
Instead of the standard startup funding announcement, proclaiming that the company will use its funding for product development, marketing and so on, Meteor says it "will use the money to build the open source community around its offerings."
Is that so? Who knew all you needed for an open-source community was $11.2m in venture funding?
This may be a bit harsh. After all, Meteor's board is filled with people who understand that money can't buy a community. David Skok invested in and helped to build JBoss's commercial business. Rod Johnson built up a massive, two-million strong Spring community. Peter Levine also has an open-source pedigree, having run XenSource until its acquisition by Citrix.
But guess what? In exactly zero of those cases did venture money buy a community. The opposite, in fact, happened. Read more...
Why a disconnected society is far more dangerous than a connected one
Do we need a social media kill switch? I don't think so, not judging by where I live.
Let me explain. I call home a fairly anonymous part of southwest London called Colliers Wood. Despite it turning into a nice place to live over the past 20 years, a week ago it saw more than its fair share - if ever there can be a fair share - of disturbances, including rioting, arson, looting and other types of mindless vandalism.
It didn't warrant much mention in the rolling TV or radio news, and few online heat maps even register what went on, but it was serious wrongdoing and, relative to the size of the community, among the worse in London, I'd wager.
One of the benefits of living in this part of SW19 is that it is well served in a retail sense but in addition to family-owned shops and a thriving market, there are big-brand high-street names, which acted like a red rag to the criminals' bull. Read more...