Recognition!
Serdar Yegulalp picked up on my Open Source Is Not Just a License post and highlighted it in a post to his Information Week blog. He writes:
There is indeed a great deal to gain by contributing, and while many people might sniff at the fact that at least some of it is PR (as Tim put it), it’s easy to forget that PR is a crucial ingredient in the glue that holds together a community. A person with a bad reputation as a fair player is less likely to be welcomed into any community; someone who has a track record of playing fairly — or at least attempting to play more fairly — will be welcomed and will be able to reap the benefits all the more enthusiastically. You tend to give more when you know you’ll get more in return.
He goes on:
What Tim means by open source not just being a license is reflected in all of this. Anyone can write and release something under an open source license — yes, even Microsoft — but that doesn’t mean they’ll be used, re-used, built on or well-respected. That takes time and engagement, and a sense that you need to give as good as you get.
There are times when I think I’m talking to myself in what I think. Perhaps I could be mistaken.
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