[peterwwillis]

Does the sad realization occur to anyone else that if all software was open instead of proprietary, we probably would already have the most optimized, most efficient, most advanced software? Instead, most of it's proprietary, so we've been re-inventing the wheel for decades.

I remember how well and how fast software worked 20 years ago. Today I have to reboot my telephone to make a call.

[mkl]

This doesn't make sense to me. There's lots of open source software that's widely used, but most of it is not the "most optimized, most efficient, most advanced".

I think you are looking at the past with rose-tinted glasses. The software I remember from 20 years ago was generally slow, clunky, unstable, and often didn't work very well.

[noisem4ker]

I think there's so much more code already than people are capable and willing to work on. Exposing my business' code to the world would only add to the pile.

Open source as we know it is the perfect playground for trying out new technologies, just for the sake of it or for building resumes. This is exactly "reinventing the wheel" as you say it.

Last, I'm not sure of the link between open source and software quality.