More Open-Source

More action on the open source front. I was watching the movie layer cake and one key line I retained was, “Being good at business is being a good middleman”. That is exactly what the open-source gurus have done. Wikipedia’s Walsh, eBay’s Skoll, Linux’s Torvald, Craigslist’s Craig, Facebook’s Zuckerberg…

Its all about providing tools for other people to do work for you. That is why I see such a great combination between open-source and micro-finance – hence the site Kiva. A great place to lend money – not donate – to help people lift themselves out of poverty. Another fascinating move in society is the similtaneous shift towards capitalism as a poverty alleviation tool and collaboration – the theoretical anithesis to capitalism – for the sharing of ideas and the development of products at low cost.

Here is a great TED talk by Leadbeater on open-source:

Leadbeater has also posted the first 5 chapters of his book for comments, it is a worthwhile read.