What is your view on the argument that open source is ony good for (re-)-building something that already exists. e.g. that Linux works because it is based on Unix. Same for any other open source examples I can think of (and equally for the hardware guys now building open source CNC machines).

Your Theora example seems to supports that argument. If I understand correctly that Theora is an open source project inspired by existing closed-source technologies.

Following this argument you’d say that innovation begins with commercially-driven interests and that the open-source-isation is a later step in the inevitable commidification of something successful once it’s been around a while.

Which is why I think the work that someone like Paoga http://www.paoga.com/ is doing is particularly interesting in this space. (Whether it’s “the answer” is a different question).

Personally I’d like to think that open source can drive innovation rather than emulating it. I’m just struggling to find supporting evidence.

VRM is too new to provide examples, so let’s take something else individuals can generate as well as use: video. How can one compress video so it can travel through most of the Net’s pipes to other users? Well, there’s Flash. That’s proprietary. And there’s Microsoft’s Silverlight. That’s proprietary too, although it’s not limited just to Microsoft operating systems. It runs on Macs and may eventually run on Linux with the help of Novell.

Or they can use Theora, the video sister to Ogg Vorbis audio. (Theora isn’t quite ready yet, but it will be by the end of the year, and Firefox plans to support it.)

What we want with VRM is to start with the equivalents of Theora and Ogg Vorbis. We can save years of anguish that way.

For more background on the above, go here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/sports/olympics/10stream.html?scp=1&sq=linux%202008&st=cse