Heute ist Thanksgiving, der wohl wichtigste nationale Feiertag in den Vereinigten Staaten.

9 Uhr morgens, ich stehe für einen Moment mitten auf der Hauptverkehrsstraße und weit und breit kein Auto. Leergefegt wie Deutschland beim Endspiel der Fußball-Weltmeisterschaft.

Deutsche Feiertage fühlen sich ja eigentlich eher wie Sonntage an. Kein Wunder auch, dass die Busse dort wie sonntags fahren, die Restaurants wie sonntags öffnen und so weiter. Die Menschen gehen in die Kirche, mähen den Rasen und waschen ihr Auto.

In einem Land hingegen, in dem man montags bis sonntags 24 Stunden lang einkaufen kann, wirkt ein nationaler Feiertag wie ärztlich verordnete Bettruhe.

Nicht nur, dass niemand unterwegs ist (ja, der Campus ist *leer*), sondern interessanterweise sind auch so Räume wie der eigentlich 24 Stunden geöffnete Computerpool abgeschlossen; auch die Studenten, die in einem der Wohnheime wohnen, müssen über Thanksgiving raus: Gestern wurden um 5 Uhr nachmittags die Wohnheimtüren verschlossen, und sie werden erst an Sonntag wieder geöffnet.

Den krönenden Abschluss den Nationalsedativums “Thanksgiving” bildet regelmäßig das Truthahnessen am Abend: Die Truthähne der Welt fürchten das jährliche Fest zurecht. Ich für meinen Teil bin heute bei meiner Gastfamilie zum Essen eingeladen und freue mich schon drauf. Es verspricht köstlich zu werden

Corey and Scott blog about a letter to the editor these days which was printed in the local newspaper recently. The tag line of the letter was, that the State of Oregon should not fund the OSL with public money because Open Source Software (OSS) is bad for the principles of capitalism.

I personally think, Peter, the author of the letter, is not the only person to think like that about Open Source Software. And we should explain to those people why OSS is not “some sort of socialistic collaborative” but professional software engineering from a different point of view.

We get rid of what effectively breaks out good and secure software development, because teamwork is made more difficult if not totally prohibited: Closed source licenses. And by that, we open ourselves towards criticism, and we can achieve that some of the very best people in the world help us on our software projects. And they constantly improve them. Why? Because *they can*. Because they can effectively influence what happens to the software they use. Because we let them look at what’s the core of the software: Its code.

And even though this sort of software is “freely available”, capitalistic principles do not suffer. (Believe me one thing: IBM, HP and others would not spend a single dollar on OSS if they could not make money of it!) Even though I can download the software and play with its code, not everybody is able or willing to do so. And therefore, the “making of money” doesn’t simply disappear how Peter fears. The place of making money shifts. Towards teaching people how to use the software. Towards maintenance contracts and towards personalized solutions.

Imagine, you want to have a special feature implemented in your software because it would help your 5000 employees making their everyday work. I want to see you talking to companies like Microsoft asking for a personalized feature in their software. (“Can you write me a plugin framework so that I can still use the scripts that we used before?”). And of course, people are paid for the work they do on that. But what the State of Oregon (and therefore, indirectly, the tax payer!) gets out of its money, is a boost in efficiency and security of the software they use. Every day.

The bottom line is: Please try to open yourself a little to this point of view. Try to see, that it might be more effective to collaborate on projects together rather than keeping your work for yourself. It’s collaboration, not isolation, that makes innovation work.