"Image Han Solo fits a custom-made tractor beam to the Millennium Falcon. Now problem is he's paid a shady engineer on some remote moon to make it, and it's one of a kind. If it breaks it's Han's problem, no one else's. Similarly, if he needs it to be upgraded to work with mark four cargo containers he will have to pay for the upgrades himself. How's an honest man to make a living having to maintain a shoddy piece of technology like that, huh?
Genius strikes! 'What if I share the blueprints with the entire Rebel fleet?,' Han thinks. And he does. He open sources them, and suddenly the aforementioned problems aren't only his anymore. No, keeping the tractor beam compatible with containers is important to other people too it turns out. And they make lots of other improvements too, and share the designs. Han happily copies and borrows."
The act of open sourcing software is a major cost saver and way to offload maintenance cost of code, for enterprises, large, small, in galaxies far far away or around the corner. If your next customer is a Star Wars fan, this allegory may work convincing him or her!
Photo courtesy of aksoy@sxc.hu
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