Books and the Open Source Idea

Books Were the First Open-Source Software, by Seth Roberts, brings the concept of open source from books:

...The curious thing about book publishing is similar to what Swartz noticed in a different realm: The content, the crucial stuff, is entirely from amateurs. No other industry, with the possible exception of craft shows, is like this. If I run a deli, I buy supplies and food from people who make their living selling supplies and food. If I make clothes, I buy my cloth from professional cloth makers. If I make cheese, my milk comes from professional farmers. Only book publishers endlessly deal with amateurs.

It is the source of their power -- power to change the world. The first widely-distributed math textbook changed math forever: No longer could math teachers charge so much (since a book cost much less) and the quality of math went way up (because many more people could learn and improve it). Books and open-source software may seem to have nothing in common but Wikipedia is intermediate between them. Open-source software decreased what programmers could charge and the quality of software is going way up. (For example, the R language for data analysis.) Wikipedia decreased what scholars could charge to write an encyclopedia article and the quality of encyclopedia articles is going way up...

It's true with books, but ultimately book publishers decide what gets published or not - just as the recording industry decides who and what gets recorded. What the internet and technologies such as blogs have done is allow more people to self-publish. While writing is open and anyone who can write may write, but who approves the results is different. It's the community. But that's not true either.

Ultimately, the value of writing is not in what the community thinks now, but what the community looks back on. Books Were the First Open-Source Software is a thought provoking read. Go check it out. :-)