Open Source Marketplaces

"The power of Open Source is the power of the people. The people rule." ~ Philippe Kahn

"Empowerment of individuals is a key part of what makes open source work, since in the end, innovations tend to come from small groups, not from large, structured efforts." ~ Tim O'Reilly

"In open source, we feel strongly that to really do something well, you have to get a lot of people involved." ~ Linus Torvalds

"There are many examples of companies and countries that have improved their competitiveness and efficiency by adopting open source strategies. The creation of skills through all levels is of fundamental importance to both companies and countries." ~ Mark Shuttleworth

In many advanced economies, work is becoming more parallel. There are so many different collaborative projects in which contributors all over the world are creating via open source that offer faster more flexible and in some cases endlessly scalable. Linux is one example of such a positive Global project. This model is revolutionizing industries not only in operating systems and computers but also in media, education and customer service.

Workflows for open source projects such as Linux or Wikipedia or collaborative news blogs or very low cost open source education such as MIT open courseware or Gail courseware via libraries, create efficiencies.

Typical traditional hierarchical systems, majority of the time, are not capable to create extremely fast, efficient projects for hundreds of millions of people in every country to access to use, and in turn add valuable contributors.

In some industries, it's important to stay small and linear on some projects in the marketplace, to learn from mistakes, adjust, and get better, compared to a company such as Microsoft. Even this behemoth software company learns from open source projects that helps their developers create better paid products in that marketplace.

One interesting marketplace frontier that is shifting intellectual property is digital goods not only software and music, but media and more specifically, non-DRM ebooks.

One site that really caught my eye which is owned by one person and can easily become the largest most accessible open source collaborative ebook site for any person from any country to passively learn from none other than simply reading free books.

The really cool thing about this site, Global Grey ebooks - https://www.globalgreyebooks.com/ the owner has offered anyone who is downloading the formatted ebooks, readers are welcome to give a small donation for all the work she does on the website, and the formatting of the ebooks. It's literally an open source intellectual building site for people to learn and contribute.

Open source marketplaces are definitely interwoven using the internet, technology, and idea collaboration which are definitely reshaping economies and positively affecting all societies that would not have access for a better life, a century ago.