

Software Commons vs. Product - chtfn
http://standardsandfreedom.net/index.php/2015/05/25/software-commons-vs-product/

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chtfn
I find this post makes a lot of sense in how it explains why it always felt
natural to define the projects I get involved in as "projects": they are meant
to always evolve, more living entities than frozen products. I feel this
applies to other online communities too, like open databases: Wikimedia
projects, OpenStreetMap, MusicBrainz... each of them more or less tightly
linked to software development anyway. It is relevant to the difficulty of
explaining what a project is to newcomers, and the issue with trying to put
two different things at the same level. Take Google Maps and OpenStreetMap (as
opposed to "Google Maps VS OpenStreetMap"): because of their nature, they are
two different things that can be compared but should not be seen as two
competing "products". Promoting OSM as "an alternative to GM" is definitely
not the way to go – in fact, it is quite a detrimental one.

