The Linux philosophy is 'Laugh in the face of danger'. Oops. Wrong One. 'Do it yourself'. Yes, that's it.
I often compare open source to science. To where science took this whole notion of developing ideas in the open and improving on other peoples' ideas and making it into what science is today and the incredible advances that we have had. And I compare that to witchcraft and alchemy, where openness was something you didn't do.
Public participation helped create the Internet, and it helps protect it. That's worth celebrating and remembering.
If I had taken a proprietary control of the Web, then it would never have taken off. People only committed their time to it because they knew it was open, shared: that they could help decide what would happen to it next.. and I wouldn't be raking off 10%!
Certainly I get a lot personally out of it as well, there's the recognition and things like that but mostly I try to take that as an opportunity to explain why I hope we could see more projects like Apache out there and why it's a good thing for society.
The thing with Linux is that the developers themselves are actually customers too: that has always been an important part of Linux.
Growth hacking isn't some proprietary technical process shrouded in secrecy. In fact, it has grown and developed in the course of very public conversations. There are no trade secrets to guard.
I think, fundamentally, open source does tend to be more stable software. It's the right way to do things.
Being open source meant that I could work on the technical side (along with lots of other people), and others who had the interest and inclination could start up companies around it.
We all are interested in an open development, without any prejudice; this refers particularly and, perhaps, primarily to the Baltic countries, for them it is more important than for Russia.
