What's driving the internet revolution? Make no mistake, history is going to call this era the internet revolution. Well, new hardware? Population pressure on the conventional job sector? Merging of communication technology? Best minds in the world? I'll say that in addition to all of the above, there are two important factors which keep the internet and its applications alive:

1. OPENSOURCE INITIATIVES

2. FILESHARING

OPENSOURCE:

It's a bitterly contested argument, but the way I see it, opensource wins hands down. It all comes down to the basic definition of IT. IT is basically just a tool used by companies to increase the efficiency of their operations. By making opensource technology available to anybody who wants to use it, we increase the number of companies who are going to use it to automate their work, the same people who otherwise would make do without it, suffering the disadvantages of not using IT as a tool.Going one step further, in good times, maybe people will invest in IT, but when the economy is down, you tend to focus your resources on the core requirements. Which tends to halt growth even further, causing the economy to stagnate even more. In such times, opensource software cuts across this gordian knot to reduce the overheads a company faces plus helping the company grow and reach out to newer markets. I bet you ten to one the current resurgence in the economy, led by IT industries, is purely the result of such opensource initiatives. More and more schools, offices and banks are networking using Linux as the OS. Every major technolgy that you and I are using today including upgrades of PHPAffiliate, java based scripts and linux have come out through opensource platforms such as SUN and Sourceforge. The people at the top would be well advised to support and enhance such forums instead of trying to bring them down.

FILESHARING:

This one is more of a double edged sword. While taking the use of applications to a height not seen for a long time, filesharing does tend to trample heavily on the valid rights and efforts of companies and hardworking people. Which means that while people are benefiting from the use of readily available technology, the makers are not being paid what they are asking for. This is the basic difference between opensource and filesharing. The strength of fileshare networks is their ability to use the downloaders' resources to help others download. Which means that you don't need to spend huge resources just to keep a file hosted for thousands of people. How do we channel this massive octopus to put it to best use? Regulation is too late. There is no way to control filesharing now. How many Napsters can you close? The way I see it, the only way is to reduce the timeframes for patents. Let's be fair, you come up something, working very hard to make it a good and useful product, you want to see some returns. But if the locking period of the source were reduced to a period of , like say, 1 year, that would be a first step towards reducing piracy. Most people would be willing to wait than download an illegal copy from a fileshare network. And, companies, who need to stay ahead of the market with the use of new technology would buy it. Not that the problem would be solved totally, but it would give regulation a chance to catch up with the filesharing networks.

The time when people paid heavily to buy IT products is gone. Support and nurture opensource initiatives. Subsidise their efforts. Make the internet free to access. By charging heavily for basic IT products, you are shooting yourself in the foot. Help IT to help you. And oh yes, did I mention, this article is opensource too. Feel free to dip in.

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