I’ve become enchanted with the open source software world. It’s still early in the relationship, so I’ve not grown tired of the way OpenOffice just quits in that oh-so-Linux way of just turning the screen black. It’s cute like that funny laugh during the initial dating stages, but it will certainly grate once there’s another toothbrush in the holder.

Slashdot picked up on an interesting InfoWorld blog post making the case for open source software at the enterprise level. Having thought running an open source NLE would be kinda cool, I tried Cinerella, Kino, and the definitely not ready for prime time Jashaka. None of them are close to ready for client work, and none of my clients are ready for the requisite growing pains of a new platform.

Still it’s an interesting concept that could prove viable. At first glance it seems crazy to think that people in this highly competitive industry would put a lot of time and effort into developing tools for the competition. It’s not. Check out all the forums, listserves, and user groups that proliferate in our hyper connected world. Why do people post on those? I find it hard to believe that people like Terry Curren of Alpha Dogs gets nearly as much useful information out of these venues as he puts in. The same goes for scores of other folks on both the creative and technical sides of the business.

There are obviously coders out there who would take this on. What Cinerella and Jashaka need is more input from professionals. If the open source community could harness a fraction of the knowledge and generosity of video pros, we could be onto something.

Doubt the potential of open source? Spend a Saturday afternoon with a PC ready for the dumpster and load Ubuntu Linux on it. You can breathe new life into an old Pentium III or G3 with a full suite of office apps, email, and RSS. The standard install even includes GIMP – an almost reasonable Photoshop substitute.