As I've been working with open source technologies for a few years now I've noticed, comparatively recently, a gigantic leap in the quality of the 'products' themselves. At the same time, and not coincidentally, somewhere between many and damn nearly all of the latest and greatest rapidly growing companies are relying on OSS technologies for their growth. Some of these companies can be called startups and some are not. Another pattern has emerged, that of the long touted "code reuse" actually happening.

The question that comes to mind is: why?

I think to answer that question we need to look at where today's software industry has come from. When I started the GenX's ruled the roost. We (mostly) went to university, studied proper computer science - learning how hash tables work etc - and combined with the just extreme ego that goes with most geeks this led to a cousin of NIH ... I can do it better ... and consequently an industry that for most of the 90's was based on reinventing the wheel. I have a deathmarch story about that that can wait for another day. GenY are different. They want results. They want to look good. From an IT industry standpoint they've come up from HTML2 and the culture of exchanging chunks of Javascript to make menus pop up, and most have never even considered what actually goes on under the lid. They just want it to work - hence the rediscovery of code reuse.

But this is not the whole story. As these guys grew up some, understandably, got an interest in the industry in general and how one went about going from HTML to coding to coding-for-someone-good. 99% of the software industry is about making boring stuff for boring people (one of the reasons the GenX NIH thing kicked off). The HTML generation have approached the problem from a different angle: instead of being better they appreciate the need to look better, hence an appreciation for publicity, hence open source.

Seriously. It's the greatest ever platform for a coder to demonstrate their wares and has led to things like Guido van Rossum becoming a "household" name, DHH of rails fame making himself a PITA at every possible opportunity, and a big BIG desire within the up and coming coders to be seen. In a world where nobody wants to work for Microsoft anymore, career building has changed and open source is both the vehicle and the benefactor.