I ran across an interesting article on crowdsourcing at computerworld. The concept is interesting, and nothing new. I see the up and downsides to it, but from a professional perspective the risks involved out weight the advantages gained in my opinion. The possibility of intellectual property rights comes to mind as one of the largest down sides. What happens when you accept code from a crowdsourcing initiative and do not realize that it contains copyright infringing material? Sure, your own employees could do the same thing, but you have more control over them and the process. Which brings in another down side, without close monitoring and management, crowdsourcing would easily get out of control. The potential cost and time savings could easily be wiped out by the need for increased oversight. That being said, as the need for innovation and speed increase, crowdsourcing could be worth the tradeoff in some scenarios. I'll stop the diatribe now.