Open Source as a Game
Sam Ramji, CEO of Cloud Foundry Foundation, makes a bold statement: no enterprise can compete into the future unless they embrace open source technology and business models. He relates this notion to game theory, positive-sum vs. zero-sum games. The numbers of zero-sum businesses are diminishing as more companies move to positive-sum open source models. This may be a result of companies having to also become software and analytic companies to keep up with ever fast-growing technology and the demand for it. Technology is a shared wealth of knowledge. Thus, open source is a positive sum game.
Why? Because the more we contribute, the more others can benefit, and no one is negatively impacted in the process. Ramji brings up a quote from Robert Wright’s Nonzero, “The history of civilization is a history of positive-sum games played at larger and larger scales.” It all begins with the positive trend of how many one can call “self” rather than “other”. For example, civilization has moved from only considering your family “self” to one’s tribe to one’s chiefdom and then to one’s city-state or nation-state. We are constantly including more into our community so that more people contribute and benefit in this “game”. Relating this to companies, “self” is no longer just everyone of the same company, but everyone of the same project with a common goal in mind.
Though Ramji’s connection between open source and game theory is more on the abstract side, his ideas are intriguing and agreeable. I do believe open source is the future, if not the present. Ramji ends his keynote stating that we each have a responsibility to share what we’re learning and to invite more players to the game. We must build better practices of expanding the group we call “self” instead of “other”. Only then can we create a positive-sum game at its largest scale.
Resource: https://www.linux.com/news/everyone-wins-open-source-software