My latest item from IT Conversations has been Novell’s David Patrick on “Open Source Renaissance”. It’s from OSCON 2004 — yeah, it’s old, but it’s still good.

It’s filled with lots of good stuff but what was really good for me was hearing him talk about substitutes anc complements. When starting a new project, one should look for an open source project that complements what you are doing or an open source project you can substitute for you project. This strategy, overall, should lower the cost of IT resources.

It should be added that to make this strategy more successful, one should be encourage your developers to participate in open source projects — sometimes it would probably be required. If you have a open source product that you want to use but it has a show-stopping bug in it or it doesn’t have a couple of features you would like. Why not put a couple of developers on it and send the code back? Everyone wins — you and the product.

Patrick also discusses that for an open source company to succeed, they have to form a relationship with the customer and serve to their needs and that this mentality is a new one in the software industry. I think that it’s outrageous that forming a relationship with your customers and caring for their needs is a new concept in this industry — but I do agree that it is. Companies for too long have focused on lock-in and not giving customers what they need. I think this is one of the main reasons that open source has been so successful and will continue to be.