Maybe you remember an incident that happened 2 years ago during the Golden League in Rome - a French long jumper, Salim Sdiri, was hit by a javelin thrown by Finnish athlete, Tero Pitkämäki. The javelin thrower, one of the best in the world, was competing for first place when he slipped and missed his throw which struck the long jumper standing 80 meters (262′) away. Traumatized, Pitkämäki lost the competition and Sdiri was taken to the hospital.This scenario came vividly to mind while I was reading a recent post from Matt Asay, entitled “Building a business selling open source software,” where he explains how Rob Walling, blogger and web development expert, in the process of giving tips on How to compete against open source competition, actually does a fair job of describing how to build an exceptional open-source business.

In fact the arguments advanced by Walling are quite old and outdated, as in the well-known comment “Open source software is free if your time is worth nothing.” Matt’s post analyzes how he fails to convince us, particularly in the field of commercial open source software.

Aiming at one target, Walling managed to hit his own colleagues in the back. He’s not the first or the last but, as Matt Asay proves, open source opponents need to train harder and focus better.

For the record, Salim Sdiri went back to competition one year later, and beat the French record of long jump in 2009 (8m42, or approx. 26′). But Tero Pitkämäki never regained his former level, despite a bronze medal in Beijing in 2008.

I think that says it all.

Bertrand