Ask HN, again: Do Companies Exploit Open Source And Programmers Are Plagiarists?

Someone had a good technical post on HN later this week which went into a flame war. Unfortunately some important issues were missed on the thread which might be interesting for hackers:

1. Do (VC backed) companies exploit open source?

"For a VC backed firm it is entirely about ever increasing revenues to give the illusion of growth so that shareholders will invest and drive the price of a stock as high as possible. It is not in their best interest to not do an IPO. They want money now, as much of it as possible, and they aren’t interested in good technology investments or people.

What they want is tons of free technology they can hide from investors. They want that technology all run by people who didn’t write any of the software so that these employees can’t claim ownership later.

This nearsighted management, combined with limited funding at the start, means that these companies exploit open source. They will use it, make their money, and then run off when they’re done. Which, actually, is totally alright, because that’s just how things are, and honestly if you’re a company looking to make money that way, then that’s what you should do."

2. Do programmers are plagiarists?

"Honestly, how many of you people who use open source tell your boss what you’re using? How many of you tell investors that your entire operation is based on something one guy wrote in a few months? How many of you out there go to management and say, “Hey, you know there’s this guy Zed who wrote the software I’m using, why don’t we hire him as a consultant?”"