Faster Horses And Open Source

Software sees a very high frequency of newer versions everyday, more so in the open source world. I have heard claims that this is just a way of the software developers/owners to continuously engage the user. However, reading faster horses (a must-read piece by JP) made me think that this is just the after-effect of engaging the user. Users get a lot of more say in software than in other tools. There might be other reasons, but the users’ direct participation has definitely accelerated the evolution of software products. Not surprisingly, we have seen it happen first in the open source world. If we want more of faster horses in coming times, then we will perhaps see open source in other industries as well, not just software development.