Collaboration on software development is essential, but
how do you include your partners, customers and even
competitors as part of an extended team? The Eclipse
Foundation's Ian Skerrett shares tips on using open source
software to establish an innovative network for IT.

Michael Gibbons, director of science and technology policy research at Britain's Sussex University, said universities must abandon their centuries-old model of linear knowledge transfer and instead open their doors and minds to knowledge exchange with competitors and students...He cited as a model the development of the open-source Linux computer operating system, freely available and able to be modified, used and redistributed by anyone.

AS the Senate prepares to tinker with the nation’s patent laws this spring, it’s worth recalling the law of unintended consequences.

Lately, some articles appeared which stated the open-source way of development didn't bring us any innovation. Jaron Lanier even goes further by saying closed source is the better approach to innovation. However, these people miss a lot of important points and facts about innovation, and therefore the conclusions they make are false. Having read a lot about innovation myself lately, I will try to show that the open-source way of doing things leads to more innovation, and more important, I will give some real life examples showing the closed-source inventions aren't that innovative at all, and pointing to some open-source inventions the other writers missed.

history tells me that if patents were to disappear tomorrow, the process of innovation wouldn't skip a beat.

When you ask google for innovations in Linux what you get is rather disappointing - on the first page there’s somebody’s rather uninformed attack on Linux as lacking innovation, some PR bumbf, and five separate references to a joint IBM/Red Hat press release entitled “IBM, Red Hat Announce New Development Innovations in Linux Kernels”.

Before everyone goes to arms over the title, consider this: Linux options are much more than just the desktop environment. Linux remains largely entrenched in the server realm, along with substantial growth in the mobile markets as well.

While it is good news that significant amounts are being invested in open source vendors, there has been a decrease in the amount of funds invested in Series A rounds, suggesting that “the VC industry has filled the checkerboard and has moved to something else as far as startups are concerned”