[kamaal]

>>Why is competitiveness a good thing for the business of writing software? Don't you think cooperation would be better for such a deeply team-oriented discipline?

Mostly because compensation, benefits, raises, promotions and incentives are in most cases at individual levels. So people chase goals what you want them to chase.

Also note what's good for the team is often not good for the individual. I know this from personal experience, if you have a mix of high and low performers in a team and the rewards for them are going to be the same regardless of performance- The next thing that happens is the low performers make no attempt to increase their performance and high performers are always supposed to make up for it.

This creates immense frustration for people who are performing well. They see no reason why they must be doing heroics to take the same amount of money as the guy who isn't putting even a fraction of their effort. So the whole team collaboration stuff collapses.