Trust is what makes open source work
Dana Blankenhorn makes a good point that credibility is key to open source:
I have long believed credibility to be the coin of the realm in open source, far more so than in a proprietary operation. Trust is needed to build a community, to draw contributions, and to gain commitments for enterprise installations. It’s as important as capital, certainly more important than marketing.
Credibility is the key not only to open source but to any web based community. This really hit home to me one day six years ago when I was sharing a cab with a prominent open source community leader and he told me that he wouldn't use OpenOffice because he didn't trust Sun. He wouldn't use the product because he didn't trust Sun – and here I was trying to convince companies like Sun to use open source products and to trust the community! Right there in front of me was the answer – companies could trust open source because the whole model was built on trust. In open source your reputation, power, credibility is based on your actions, your history and who you choose to endorse or trust and one bad move can make it all fall apart. Given the nature of the web, one bad move will trash your reputation in seconds. That's why you can trust the community – they are all watching. They support those that are trustworthy and quickly expose those that aren't.
It's also why you can't just blindly use open source software – you need to track the projects and the communities that you rely on. And a note to those that are afraid to do anything for fear of being judged negatively: you need to participate and become a trusted member. Doing no evil is not the same as doing good. No action means no actions on which you can be judged trustworthy!
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