Google defends open source from 'poisonous people'

Google I/O Once upon a time, there was an open source project called Subversion, and it needed a new date parser.

One day, a coder came along and wrote one. But he insisted on tagging the source code with his John Hancock. And that was against the rules. Subversion's founders said that name tags would undermine collaboration.

When the founders asked the coder to remove his name, he refused, threatening to leave the project and take his date parser with him. It was a good date parser - just want the project needed - but the founders stood their ground.

So, the coder left with his parser and never submitted another patch. But six weeks later, a second coder came along. "Hey," he said, "I can write a date parser."