Re:Zoom Acquires Keybase
by snowwrestler on Thursday May 07, 2020 @11:48AM
(#23104347)
Aside from whether this matches the typical meaning of "broken window fallacy," I think the substance of what you're saying doesn't match reality.
Open source is famous for fostering a bunch of different approaches to the same problem, and slightly different forks of the same concept. That's the "bazaar" in the famous metaphor, as opposed to the "cathedral" of monolithic, hierarchical, linear proprietary development within a closed-source company.
"Everyone working on the same thing" only works well when there is broad agreement on what that thing should be, and strong governance to resolve disputes. National highway systems, militaries, and power grids are good examples.
I don't think search engines are a good example of where this would work; it's not clear in advance what will make a given search engine better. Thus we benefit from a variety of competing approaches, essentially to expand the space in which we're searching for the optimum.
Open source is famous for fostering a bunch of different approaches to the same problem, and slightly different forks of the same concept. That's the "bazaar" in the famous metaphor, as opposed to the "cathedral" of monolithic, hierarchical, linear proprietary development within a closed-source company.
"Everyone working on the same thing" only works well when there is broad agreement on what that thing should be, and strong governance to resolve disputes. National highway systems, militaries, and power grids are good examples.
I don't think search engines are a good example of where this would work; it's not clear in advance what will make a given search engine better. Thus we benefit from a variety of competing approaches, essentially to expand the space in which we're searching for the optimum.