So the story that most people know is the story of free or open source software. This is market share of Apache web server-

-one of the critical applications in web based communications. In 1995, two groups of people said wow, this is really important, the web! We need a much better web server! One was a motley collection of volunteers who just decided you know, we really need this, we should write one, and what are we going to do with what — well, we’re gonna share it! And other people will be able to develop it. The other was Microsoft. Now if I told you that 10 years later, the motley crew of people who didn’t control anything that they produced acquired 20% of the market and was the red line (refers to second largest share on graph), it would be amazing! Right? Think of it in minivans. A group of automobile engineers on their weekends are competing with Toyota. Right?

But in fact, of course, the story is it’s the 70% (refers to top blue line), including the major e-commerce site — 70% of a critical application on which web based communications and applications work is produced in this form in direct competition with Microsoft, not in a side issue — in a central strategic decision to try to capture a component of the net.

This got me curious. How does this happen? Is it really just a motley crew, a group of random people drawn together in the interest of building a Web Server? Well, it may have started that way but it no longer is. They now operate under what is called a meritocracy. They call this government by merit where newcomers are considered as volunteers who are looking to help rather than people who are coming to steal power.

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