If you check whitehouse.gov, we can give money and pay attention to what’s happening. But what if I have a big company and I can actually implement solutions much faster than a government organization can? Should I want to passively observe the devastation?

What if Obama used his massive power with the media to crowd source relief? I would imagine the first line of order would be to get communication in the area and relief workers to give out food and water. One of the telcos could step forth and various water and food companies could come forward. UPS actually does logistical work and could help coordinate some of the shipping to a Haiti port.

Doctors and pharmaceutical companies could offer their services. Airlines could fly them there.

After this, there would need to be security to keep the peace as well as efforts to offer shelter. I’m not sure the military could get crowd sourced, but Architecture for Humanity allows architects to contribute ideas for sustainable housing in developing nations. Obama could use the winning designs and then the fledgling building supply companies could offer up housing.

Why would these companies offer these services for nothing or next to nothing? The same reason why developers contribute to open source: for fulfillment and credibility.
1.) If Obama comes out and says, “We could count on American Airlines to deliver our thought leadership teams to Haiti on time,” it’s worth more than any add they could put on TV. If he says “Southwestern Bell really dropped the ball with our communication strategy”, the opposite rules apply. Obama and his staff can hold parts of the puzzle accountable, which keeps them honest regardless of payment.
2.) One backlink/dedicated page from the biggest crowdsourced project to date (Haiti relief from whitehouse.gov) is worth more than just about any backlink an SEO expert could buy you. You’d also want to consider all of the residual backlinks you’d get from people discussing specific parts of the project.
3.) It’s the right thing to do and giving product away is often cheaper than advertising.

This would obviously require “architects” familiar with this type of work to coordinate. But given how long government contracts can take to get through and the bureaucracy and expense involved, isn’t it the right thing to do? Shouldn’t that be what “Yes We Can” means?

I just got back from North Carolina to meet with the guys at OpenNMS about their website. These guys are OG open source network management software guys, since OpenNMS has been around since 1999.

It truly is refreshing to see a company that gets open source. Open source isn’t about some pie-in-the-sky ideal of what software or community is. Open source makes sense business wise.

To me, open source is about:
1.) freedom, since we can customize the code to do what we need it to do rather than what a software company decides is right for us.
2.) pragmatism, since we only have to pay for the part we need customized and yet we get all the other features for free.

It’s funny, everyone always asks, “How do you make money with open source?” This question equates open source with free, which open source is not. That is freeware. The OpenNMS Group is profitable because it provides support and customization for the OpenNMS project. The more they get the OpenNMS project out there and the better services they provide in helping customers’ networks run more efficiently, the more money they make. It’s pretty simple.

Open source empowers the user to put in as little or as much into a product as they wish. No other software model allows us to do that. Think of it like a political campaign. Generally those who spend the most money or effort have the most impact on how the software functions. If it works great as is, you don’t have to do anything. If it has bugs, help fix them. If you need it to do something else, make it do something else or hire someone else to make it do what you want. Just like democracy, open source communities are only as good as the people in them and need good leaders to keep mob mentalities in check.

Many thanks to Tarus, Dave, Ben and Matt for treating me so well and dealing with my 10,000 questions while I was in North Carolina.

So here is the poll on which candidate you believe would best serve the open source community. You don’t have to register or wait in line this time. You just have to select a candidate by February 12th and your vote will be tallied on opensville the following day.

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