Zombies, Open Source, and Bad Analogies

by Joe Brockmeier - May. 25, 2010Comments (0)

Zombie Poster

People love good analogies, especially if they have a bit of humor about them. Such is the zombies are open source, humans are proprietary analogy Amy Vernon wrote about on NetworkWorld a few weeks ago.

Speaking of zombies, old stories are never truly dead. Thanks to the wonders of Twitter and other social networks, I just caught Vernon's post today. It's a thought-provoking post, but I think Vernon (and the analogy) are wrong on a couple of levels. Basically, the connection is this: Zombies are open source, because of the way zombies proliferate. Open source can move faster than proprietary software, because it can scale exponentially. People, being "proprietary" multiply more slowly.

While I'm a fan of open source, and the zombie genre, I don't think this analogy works if you pursue it very far. Zombies, for one thing, can be defeated. It also assumes that open source can't coexist with proprietary software, and that there need be a hostile relationship between the two. Granted, that may be the case from time to time, but it's not required. Some companies even do quite well supporting both.

And then there's Vernon's conclusion, "While the zombies may be able to propagate and multiply faster than humans, the humans probably will win in the end, because they have everything to lose."

I guess Vernon has not spent a lot of time watching zombie movies. Generally, at best, humans find a bit of respite from the zombies but they're still there. Usually waiting for George Romero to work on a sequel. But the point is, zombies generally win. While I'm not crazy about the zombie analogy, the same is true of open source. It's not really possible to kill off an open source project or the movement permanently. The licenses ensure that the code will always be there for someone else to pick it up. The community may suffer setbacks, but over time it will adapt to solve not only technical problems but also solve the business, legal, and social issues. Maybe more slowly than some of us would like, but like the undead, we have time. Maybe that zombie analogy isn't quite as bad as I thought.

Image courtesy of Hryck under a Creative Commons license.