Time and talent are the open source speed limits

Stephen Lee is convinced there is a ton of time and talent which isn't getting a shot, which is why he's backing a Web-based studio in Finland and telling anyone who will listen production is free.

I don't know what to make of Iron Sky, but I'm guessing that if you liked the mockumentary Confederate States of America you may be up for it. I'm thinking it's more like Springtime for Hitler, for real this time. No thanks.

But horses for courses, you know? That's really what open source movie-making is all about, serving niches which previously were not served.

Still, how many "good" ideas like this are there?

Which leads me to the West Texas entrepreneur. He's found a way to aggregate Internet and energy demand, feeding the former with broadband and the latter with wind, of which West Texas has plenty.

He's very idealistic and thinks his broadband network could revitalize rural America, down to the last micron. I admire his enthusiasm.

But when I started to take his idea seriously, it became obvious to me that he badly needs a big pot of money to turn that Internet pipe into an economic development tool.

It's time -- time spent learning how to use the resource, applying those lessons to problems, developing talent, then teaching others -- which is the ultimate bottleneck.

That's why PCs never made education better. We couldn't pay teachers enough to take the time to adapt the resource to their lessons before their systems became obsolete.

That's the speed limit Star Wreck faces, and it's the speed limit of open source as well. Time and talent, and the human expectation we can profit from both.