I was talking with Deepak Singh and Mike Koss at the “The Naked truth” party after the panel discussion. We were talking about coding, open source, etc. At that time, Mike made a comment that got me thinking. When Deepak was talking about his ex-company’s dilemma in open sourcing their code, Mike said that if we have to open source our code, we have to make sure that it is a very good code, as our reputation is at stake. This is a very important observation and it sets up the topic for this post. In fact, this is a very important reason why companies should open source their software. This is also the reason why open source software are far superior in the quality (of the code), stability and security. The very nature of open source sets very high standards for companies and software developers. The stakes are very high for companies as their reputation itself is in play here. When you know that customers (and competitors) are going to check your code very closely, you become very careful and ensure that your code is well written and secure. This, in turn, benefits your customer and enhances your company’s reputation. Unlike proprietary software, this is an intrinsic property of the open source approach itself. If you are a software company (or if you are just a developer releasing your product to consumers), if you decide to release your product under an open source license, there is a very high likelihood that you will release a better final product than what you would have done if you had planned to release the product under a proprietary license. I am in no way arguing that proprietay products are inferior but it is my argument that when you decide to release your product under one of the open source licenses, you automatically set the bar very high and finally end up releasing a far superior product.
Tags: OpenSource, Opensource, Proprietary, Software
