Creativity and open source

The contrast between open source and closed source can be seen in the creativity of the users. Open source communities have more focus on tool-building. This was clear at a recent Ruby meet-up, in which attendees listed their favorite Ruby gems and tools. (A Ruby "gem" is an add-on. The gem is a specific format for distribution and unpacking on your computer, much like an RPM file for Red Hat Linux or an MSI for Windows.)

At the meet-up, people came up with a list of thirty or so tools and plug-ins for Ruby, in about thirty minutes. The tools were diverse, from debuggers to code formatters.

In contrast, the Windows C#/.NET world would be hard-pressed to come up with thirty add-ons for Visual Studio, much less thirty add-ons that were "must-haves".

In part, this difference is due to the size and capabilities of Visual Studio. It has a lot of things built in. When you buy Visual Studio, you get all of the goodies and don't need much in the way of extras. Ruby, on the other hand, is just the interpreter and some libraries, so all of the goodies must be added in. The two models are different, and so lead to two different ecosystems.

i tend to think that the Ruby ecosystem is a bit stronger, since it involves more developers (who must develop tools to meet their needs). One could argue the opposite, saying that Visual Studio is the stronger community since users (of Visual Studio, that is, developers) can focus on the job at hand and be more productive. It's not an argument without merit.

So I will pick another example of creativity with open source. A local MSDN user group has a web site, and wants to increase its capabilities. they want more collaboration among group members. So the idea floated by one of the senior folks in the group: Add capabilities with Wordpress (which happens to be an open source CMS).

Ironic, isn't it?