I had the thought today after playing with digiKam. What was I playing with? I was using the fuzzy finder function. It allows you to draw a little sketch and it will find photos in your collection that somewhat resemble that sketch. A simple circle will bring up pictures of faces and other photos with similar colors. Change the color and it will bring up different photos. I tried to sketch a racecar and the first photo to come up was Denny Hamlin's 11 car at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Sweet.
What does that have to do with open source vs proprietary software? I remember several years back a friend of mine was playing with a similar function on linux. It was early in the development phase, so it wasn't ready for everyday use. It had a certain cool factor to it though. Now this function is available in digiKam.
With open source software when someone stops working on a program others can pick it up and continue on. With proprietary software it would have to be taken on by someone within the organization that owned the source code. It would not be freely available for anyone to continue with development.
Some of these cool factors are not economically beneficial to the organization. However, when passion is the main source of fuel, the sky and the developer's imagination are the only limits. The baton can also be passed or picked up as necessary.
Mike
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