Today I listened to a podcast with Marten Mickos, CEO of MySQL AB, on how they develop their open source database. The misconception is that open source projects are developed by leagues of volunteer programmers around the world. To the contrary, he said that 99% of their code is written by their own salaried engineers. (I inferred from his comments that most open source projects with commercial backing are the same.)

Despite not receiving a lot of coding help from volunteers, Marten said they still prefer the open source model because it’s not just about coding. The community by nature helps with bug fixes, patches, usability testing, security testing, stress testing, documentation, best practices, etc. Even a site like “mysqlsucks.com” is a contributer to their project because it points out their weaknesses and helps them improve. He said open source isn’t a matter of philanthropy or charity; it’s the preferred method for developing a great product.

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