Linux and Open Source: OSCON 2012: The Open-Source Creative Engine Drives the Economy

PORTLAND, Ore.—The open-source community creates tremendous value for the U.S. economy, driving small and midsize businesses (SMBs) and empowering entrepreneurs, according to a top open-source supporter. At the O'Reilly Open Source Convention 2012 (OSCON) here, Tim O'Reilly, founder of O'Reilly Media, exhorted open-source developers to "work on stuff that matters" and to create more value than you capture." Indeed, this was O'Reilly's mantra in a talk, entitled "The Clothesline Paradox: How Sharing Economies Create Value." O'Reilly lauded open-source developers for helping make the economy better while also creating a richer, fairer world. "An economy is an ecosystem; if you take more out than you put in, the economy fails," said O'Reilly as he displayed a slide that showed individuals that did not follow these principles, including Bernard Madoff and Charles Ponzi, who became famous for the "Ponzi scheme" to defraud investors. O'Reilly followed that slide with one featuring Internet pioneers Vint Cerf, Tim Berners-Lee and others, as well as language developers such as Brendan Eich, Guido van Rossum and Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto, along with others, saying they understood the concept of putting more in. eWEEK looks at how contributing to open source can make a difference and why giving back is good.