Platforms are for shoes
I've got to agree with most of the sentiment behind this article about software platforms. Although the author isn't exactly unbiased in his criticism (he is the CEO of RightNow), he does make a lot of sense - there are too many platforms offering too little value out there right now. I disagree a little bit about open source being a "solution" to this. Open source projects tend to be produced just for the reasons he denigrates ("clever coders...packaging their software for mass consumption") and often offer fragmented solutions that require too much assembly. I don't want a clean slate platform, I want to be able to extend and integrate functionality that already exists to create new things.