Please tell me what you think of Sun chief open source officer Simon Phipps's analysis of open source communities that I've summarized in an article on java.sun.com. Simon has overseen the open sourcing of the Java platform for Sun since his arrival in 2000 -- he's very thoughtful. (Here's Simon's blog.

Some brief points:

Now that software communities are easy to create and showing up everywhere, for most software projects open collaboration is more fruitful than closed. The economic model has changed so that support and training are key. Open source developing involves leveraging the value of the community and allowing your own skills to be leveraged in return in order to prevent "regression test hell".

Btw, the article has created a small buzz on JavaLobby where Simon himself clarifies some issues.