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Story: Banks 'should give back to open source community'

Posted by: Rex Ballard (Thursday 27 April 2006, 5:51 AM)

Financial companies are major contributors.

It's actually a bit amuzing and ironic to read this article.

Financial services companies are major contributors, but they contribute covertly.

Financial companies don't want to expose themselves to the liability of directly supporting open source, largely because they would be the "deepest pockets" and therefore attractive to lawyers hoping to cash in on almost any misfortune involving software contributed by the institutions.

In general, there are several strategies for mitigating this risk. The simplest is to use consultants for the bulk of your development. You can also establish a corporate policy that the employees do not disclose any confidential information to outside sources.

Dow Jones was one of the first nationally branded commercial publishers on the Internet, and provided funding to WAIS inc, who provided the foundation for some of the most popular search engines - this was back in 1993.

Much of the prototyping was done on Linux, and eventually the server was placed on Solaris, and later moved to HP_UX.

Insurance companies have given source code developed by their employees to companies such as Sun Microsystems, who then published it as open source technology.

Keep in mind that financial services companies aren't in the business of selling software. Furthermore, they have to be very careful about WHAT they give away, and also HOW they give it away.

I've been in the financial services industry for over 16 years, and in the IT industry for over 26 years.

Ironically, insurance companies, banks, brokerages, and financial services providers are some of the BIGGEST contributors - they just do it very covertly.