Friday, July 20, 2007

The Big Bazaar and Open Source

These days, I feel that i cannot pick up a book without stumbling on some mention of open source. I was reading Kishore Biyani's (Pantaloons, Big Bazaar, Future Group fame) autobiography, "It happened in India." Throughout the book, the theme is that of collaboration and partnerships. What was interesting to me was that, in the second last page of the book, Biyani talks of open source.

"In the Creative Economy, innovation will also necessarily come through collaboration. And that is evident from some of the most successful innovations that we have seen in recent years --from the Toyota Production System to the way Linux, or more recently, Wikipedia, has developed,"says Biyani in the book.

It is an interesting book and I would recommend it to anyone interested in the changing business scenarios in India. I wonder if Biyani has read Eric Raymond's, "The Cathedral and the Bazaar?" I am glad to see that more and more industry leaders are talking about open source.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

On the other hand, if you want to read a book written more than fifty years ago, that imagines a world three hundred years from now, with a focus on media, knowledge, education and enlightenment, then you must read the visionary "Glass Bead Game" by Hermann Hesse, yes the same German scholar and literary author of 'Siddharth".
Two added bonuses of reading "Glass Bead Game": a) does not mention 'opensource' and b) is literary fiction, so does not pretend to be a new-fangled business-model book; or a quick-fix inspiration book for "business decision-makers" and "thought-leaders".
the problem though, is that your views on our current FOSS movement, emerging newmedia, and the world of content and knowledge may totally change after reading this book.
:-)
niyam bhushan