Open sourcing code versus creating an open source project
The release of the NetSuite Communicator source code was the validation of the bazaar model that Raymond described. While that started the tidal wave of open source, as with any new trend, you see those pushing the edges of the trend to see what works and what doesn’t.
One particular trend is companies seeing open sourcing code as a method for making source code available, but not necessarily wanting to build an open source project around it, as described in the previous section. This is an important distinction, and while in general, it isn’t a great open source strategy, there are some cases where it is worth discussing. Let’s look at them now.
Intelligent code dumps
You might have heard of the term code dump, which refers to when code that might have previously been a commercial product or otherwise not open is made available under an open source license, but the group contributing the code has...