Social factors in software engineering

Or is that software factors in social engineering?

Skimming a bit re: AOLserver at Philip Greenspun’s site, I found this bit of text interesting:

Some day you might need to convince a company to open-source a software tool. Companies have seemingly infinite money but the shortage of truly gifted software developers is acute (see Chapter 17 of Philip and Alex’s Guide to Web Publishing for my theory on why). A compelling argument will take the following form:

the tool is not the key to your business
if you need a new feature, it would be nice to be able to hire someone off the street already experienced with the guts of your tool
a vibrant community of users for your tool will save you money, give you new ideas, and make it easier for you to hire developers from the community
it is much easier to hire a great programmer for an open-source project where he or she knows that the work won’t be hidden or wasted

I found this very thought provoking.

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