I put these two excerpts side to side because I think that Jon demonstrates here something which got missed in the whole open source = proprietary discussion. It's not about the source, it's about how your users (I don't like that word though) get the most value out of a software.

Open source is a big leap forward and had the benefit of changing how we looked at software and software companies. But as long as the software was used as product - on the client's server - the benefits for the user were still marginal.

With software as service and the "network" model, the value for the user is much higher. Naturally not all problems are resolved yet, but the steep improvements and the extraordinary blossoming of cool (software) projects (Del.icio.us, Flickr, Google Maps, Audioscrobbler/last.fm, Odeo to name but a few well known ones) in the last two years let's me get quite excited about future developments.


User innovation toolkits and continous improvement

Discussions of software as a service tend to focus on its obvious benefits: zero-footprint deployment and seamless incremental upgrades. Less noticed, but equally valuable, is the constant flow of interaction data. The back-and-forth chatter between an application and its host environment can be a drag when connectivity is marginal and it precludes offline use. But when this communication flows freely, it paints a moving picture that shows how individuals and groups are using the software.

The changing cathedral and the evolving bazaar

The bazaar is learning that fit and finish, coupled with pervasive consistency, are worthy engineering challenges to which its tactics of open and scalable collaboration can fruitfully be applied.

Five hundred years ago the cathedral and the bazaar were divided cultures. But this network we're all building and using is a machine for cultural transmission and transformation. So I regard nothing about past behavior as a certain predictor of the future.