diversity

One of the open source dynamics I find interesting is how associated communities borrow the best ideas from each other. It's true in the Drupal/Joomla/Wordpress space and true in the Python/Perl/Ruby space. It's been the observation of many that all the communities benefit from the diversity of their "sister" projects. Some say it's just healthy competition. Research highlighted in this Indiana University press release, The downside of a good idea, indicates it's deeper than that:

Goldstone found that the fully connected groups performed the best when solving simple problems. Small world groups, however, performed better on more difficult problems. For these problems, the truism "The more information, the better" is not valid.

"The small world network preserves diversity," Goldstone said. "One clique could be coming up with one answer, another clique could be coming up with another. As a result, the group as a whole is searching the problem space more effectively. For hard problems, connecting people by small world networks offers a good compromise between having members explore a variety of innovations, while still quickly disseminating promising innovations throughout the group.

My heart is with Drupal, may it lead the pack, but I hope our fellow communities thrive as well!