31 May 2006

Half-Open, Half-Closed

This isn't really open source, but it seems to me that the underlying idea has much in common with the open source development process - call it half-open (or half-closed). Here's TechCrunch's explanation:

Utah-based Logoworks, which just relaunched a major new user interface, has an innovative and inexpensive way of creating corporate and other logos for customers. They outsource the project to interested and pre-approved designers who come up with design concepts. You then pick the concept you like best and iterate from there. Designers are paid bonuses based on having their designs chosen, and so a very efficient and competitive market is created around each logo creation project.

Although TechCrunch frames this in terms of the "competitive market", I prefer to think of it as a Darwinian selection process that is akin to what happens with the larger open source projects. In any case, it's an interesting application of that idea in a general commercial context.

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