April 22, 2004

Collaborative Software Development

Ben Galbraith has posted a very interesting note about Avalanche Corporate Technology, an attempt to have large corporations develop enterprise software in a cooperative way. Quoting Galbraith (who is quoting the WSJ):

According to the WSJ, Avalanche sees a future where its members band together to write their own commercial-grade enterprise software (e.g., call center applications or even office suites) and giving the product to themselves for free.

When I was at Puget Sound ESD, we kicked around the idea of setting up a similar co-op among K-12 school districts. Nothing had left the ground when I left, but there might have been action since then. I still think its a great idea.

Update: Ted Leung responds to Galbraith's comments about open source.