I think it is also worth mentioning here that open source is both familiar and new to financial customers. There is a lot of use of open source software in our core customer base, and StreamBase itself benefits from leveraging open source. And in our experience, contributing to projects pays off in both improved relationships with core developers and in better software. Contributing back is something that individual developers are often excited about, but for which many organizations don’t yet have patterns and processes. One of the goals of the component exchange is to facilitate these contributions by StreamBase developers, to help them work through logistical and organizational concerns. It’s a tall order, but like many controversial concepts StreamBase has advocated in the capital markets (visual programming, agile development, unit testing) I think the time is right. Use of and contribution to community provided components can be a helpful part of any development project.

Neil- I apologize for any offense this post caused. I was using your tweet as a jumping off point for discussion. I think there is confusion in this area, even if you yourself are not confused. I don't mean to lump you in with any particular group, or to lecture you personally. As I mentioned at the end of the post, I think your book is very enlightened and relevant to the adoption of CEP technology. I'd love to have a conversation with you about decision services and CEP, in public or private. I'll follow up with you offline.