Tonight after at the sadeveloper meeting a few of us ended up in some soul searching discussions about the state of the IT sector in South Africa and attitudes, mentalities etc around it. (Some shocking stuff at times)
Funny how when you get passionate people together that you have epiphanies, one such epiphany I’d like to share here:
IP is not money (Horrors who ever thought), just as money is not water (now that we know)
Now what I’d like to suggest here is a better analogy:
IP is like money, just as money is like water
(Huh I hear you say…….)
Let me explain (or try to), now this could get deep so make sure you are ready for this, lets go back to the old schooling (something IT suffers from not appreciating)
lets go back to standard 6 schooling, what did we learn about water. Stagnant water (water kept in one area or space, one pond or dam) breeds disease, where on the other hand flowing water oxygenates and breeds life in abundance.
Now bring that back one step into the financial world, a bit later on in the life on humanity, in the maturity of this area we have learnt that (strangely enough, or is it) that money only shows it’s real power of benefit to man when it, wait for it……. flows. All investors will tell you money locked in a safe only grows a mouldy smell, it has to flow from (person / institution) to (person / institution) to really gain value.
Now this brings me full circle to IP (tread carefully you say). If we go back to my statement, “IP is like money, just as money is like water” I think you know where I’m heading. I’d like to suggest that IP that is locked away like a beast will only decay and breed discontent, and (with the speed of IT) will become obsolete before you have gained back it’s cost in obtaining it. I’d like to suggest that if you let IP flow it will breed an abundance of life in newly discovered IP. I’d even suggest in such abundance that a concern would need to expand it’s staff base to cope with it.
Woooaaaa I hear you say, I aint giving away my code. Did I ask you to? Does the Reserve bank give you the plates that prints the money, does your creator give you the supernatural powers to create rain. No, (Now don’t get me wrong, the open source community is doing great work in the right spaces, everything has it’s place, that’s not what I’m talking about)
Just as we don’t press money, or click our fingers to make rain, we should not steal code, but the way we code, the way we understand how to integrate systems, this we should allow to flow. Remember that money is a tool (made from paper amongst other stuff and rain is made from oxygen and hydrogen, so is the process of doing things that is the result of code). These are the tools, then the IP around handling this tool needs to be shared, this IP must flow. The physical lines of code are for discovery, that’s what makes developers such exciting people, but the process should be shared. Sure keep you lines of code but share your learning’s, trust me you will learn far more than you could ever wish to contribute. I mean this on more than just a personal level, This even applies to company levels. Mind you over the last while I’ve come to realize (Ok I always new it) that developers love to share knowledge, It’s company bodies that need to take heed.
IP is like money, just as money is like water.
Knowledge is power, only when shared.