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Open, But How Much? Growth,Conflict, and Institutional Evolution in Open‐Source Communities ¹

Juan Mateos-Garcia and W. Edward Steinmueller

in Community, Economic Creativity, and Organization

If ‘open source’ is taken as a practice employed in organizing human knowledge-related activities, it may be applied more broadly than just with software. Wherever it is used this chapter contends ... More

If ‘open source’ is taken as a practice employed in organizing human knowledge-related activities, it may be applied more broadly than just with software. Wherever it is used this chapter contends that processes of negotiation and governance will emerge as means to deal with conflicting interests and visions of community purpose (or epistemic identity). A variety of possible institutional designs for these negotiation and governance processes are possible and each will be tested by the problems of sustaining participation, the growth of the community to include more diverse participants and contests over the paths of development of collective effort. These designs and their subsequent tests are examined empirically for the Debian open source software distribution and Wikipedia open source encyclopaedia creation communities. Conclusions regarding the significance of the initial choice of rules, the processes available to alter these rules, and the potential for dissipation or disruption of efforts are reached, and a proposal to conceive of open source activities as having important parallels to the management of museums rather than bazaars is advanced.Less

The Supply Side: Comingling Open Source and Proprietary Software

Josh Lerner and Mark Schankerman

in The Comingled Code: Open Source and Economic Development

This chapter evaluates the hypothesis that open source software can potentially help promote technological innovation. It analyzes the potential to open source software solve the tension between the ... More

This chapter evaluates the hypothesis that open source software can potentially help promote technological innovation. It analyzes the potential to open source software solve the tension between the need to provide firms and individuals with the incentive to innovate and the desirability of encouraging widespread use of cutting-edge technologies and examines the development and marketing of software. The analysis indicates that most firms extensively blend the development of open source and proprietary software, rather than specializing in one or the other and that they diversify between open source and proprietary software in other dimensions as well.Less

The Demand Side: Assessing Trade-offs and Making Choices

Josh Lerner and Mark Schankerman

in The Comingled Code: Open Source and Economic Development

This chapter examines how users of open source software make the decision between open code and proprietary software. It provides insights into the structure of demand for software and how it relates ... More

This chapter examines how users of open source software make the decision between open code and proprietary software. It provides insights into the structure of demand for software and how it relates to the characteristics of users and their perceptions about various costs associated with adopting particular software. The analysis reveals that open source and proprietary software are often comingled and that firms that market proprietary code are also likely to contribute to or sell open source code as product.Less

Assessing Government Policies toward Software

Josh Lerner and Mark Schankerman

in The Comingled Code: Open Source and Economic Development

This chapter focuses on government policies on computer software. It examines how a government can develop a framework that facilitates the competitive interactions between open source and ... More

This chapter focuses on government policies on computer software. It examines how a government can develop a framework that facilitates the competitive interactions between open source and proprietary software in a manner that boosts efficiency and innovation. It analyzes arguments for why the government should support open source software and suggests that when it comes to regulation, governments should encourage vigorous competition between open and proprietary software. This chapter also argues that the government should play a lead role in providing information about the features of different types of software to consumers.Less

Application to Other Modern Debates

Brett M. Frischmann

in Infrastructure: The Social Value of Shared Resources

This chapter discusses the application of infrastructure theory to other modern debates covering Google Books, peer-to-peer file-sharing software, and open-source software.

The History of Open Source

Josh Lerner and Mark Schankerman

in The Comingled Code: Open Source and Economic Development

This chapter examines the origins and evolution of the open source software sector. It discusses the three distinct areas of open source development. These include the development of many of the key ... More

This chapter examines the origins and evolution of the open source software sector. It discusses the three distinct areas of open source development. These include the development of many of the key features of computer operating systems in the 1960s and 1970s, the formalization of rules for software development and the advent of the Internet in the 1990s which accelerated open source activity. This chapter also considers the pace of change in the open source community, the role of corporations and corporate contributors and cost concerns of open source program users.Less

Introduction

Josh Lerner and Mark Schankerman

in The Comingled Code: Open Source and Economic Development

This introductory chapter discusses the theme of this volume which is about the potential impact of open source software on economic development. This volume examines whether certain types of ... More

This introductory chapter discusses the theme of this volume which is about the potential impact of open source software on economic development. This volume examines whether certain types of computer software promote the growth of a software industry or the growth of a nation leads it turn to a given set of software. It also addresses several relevant questions. These include the differences between software and other technologies when it comes to promoting economic development, motivations for contributing to open source projects, management of the trade-offs between proprietary and open source projects and government policies required to ensure fair competition between proprietary and open source software.Less

The Culture of the Internet

Manuel Castells

in The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society

This chapter deals with the culture of the producers and users at the source of the Internet’s creation and configuration. It notes that culture means a set of values and beliefs informing behaviour, ... More

This chapter deals with the culture of the producers and users at the source of the Internet’s creation and configuration. It notes that culture means a set of values and beliefs informing behaviour, thus, repetitive patterns of behaviour generate customs that are enforced by institutions, as well as by informal organizations. It discusses that the Internet culture is characterized by a four-layer structure — the techno-meritocratic culture, the hacker culture, the virtual communitarian culture, and the entrepreneurial culture. It highlights the direct link between the cultural expressions and the technological development of the Internet. It explains that open source software is the key technological feature in the development of the Internet, and this openness is culturally determined.Less

Software and Growth

Josh Lerner and Mark Schankerman

in The Comingled Code: Open Source and Economic Development

This chapter examines the importance of computer software, particularly open source software, in economic development. It analyzes how open source software fit into the framework of growth theory and ... More

This chapter examines the importance of computer software, particularly open source software, in economic development. It analyzes how open source software fit into the framework of growth theory and explains that software’s reach extends far beyond the software industry. It also mentions that much of the innovation in software sprang from firms in other industries that have embodied software into products and processes and discusses the potential of open source model of software development to solve the conundrum of the new growth theory as it applies to software.Less

The Ecosystem

Charles M. Schweik and Robert C. English

in Internet Success: A Study of Open-Source Software Commons

This chapter describes how open-source software (OSS) has changed over the past several years and uses the ecosystem metaphor to depict its current state. It then considers commons and the various ... More

This chapter describes how open-source software (OSS) has changed over the past several years and uses the ecosystem metaphor to depict its current state. It then considers commons and the various institutions—business, governments, universities, nonprofit organizations, and scientific research organizations—that are interested in using, developing, or promoting OSS technologies. The chapter also examines the motivations driving those institutions’ interest, such as the desire to achieve interoperability and establish open standards, reduce costs for information technology, contribute to the public good, and promote economic development.Less

Toward the Comparison of Open Source Commons Institutions

Charles M. Schweik

in Governing Knowledge Commons

Open source software is arguably the oldest and largest category of Internet-based knowledge commons cases. This chapter reports the results of two related studies. The first study is a statistical ... More

Open source software is arguably the oldest and largest category of Internet-based knowledge commons cases. This chapter reports the results of two related studies. The first study is a statistical analysis of a large database of open source projects. Here, the overarching goal is to understand what leads some projects toward ongoing collaborative success while others become abandoned before achieving their goals. The second study provides a more detailed qualitative analysis of the governance structures found in a smaller set of open source software cases. It demonstrates the feasibility of a comparative, systematic, structured analysis of institutional designs. Taken together, and guided by the modified IAD framework described in Chapter 1, these two studies suggest one way forward toward a broader comparative knowledge commons research program.Less

The Takeaways

Josh Lerner and Mark Schankerman

in The Comingled Code: Open Source and Economic Development

This chapter sums up the key findings of this study on the potential impact of open source software on economic development. It discusses the importance of evaluating the trade-offs between the use ... More

This chapter sums up the key findings of this study on the potential impact of open source software on economic development. It discusses the importance of evaluating the trade-offs between the use of open source and proprietary software and explains some of the motivations for encouraging competition between open and proprietary software. It also explains the implications of the findings for corporate managers and offers a number of suggestions to encourage the research community to combine economic frameworks with an understanding of the open source phenomenon.Less

The Circuit Riders Respond: Conventions of Coordination as Movements React to Markets

Paul-Brian McInerney

in From Social Movement to Moral Market: How the Circuit Riders Sparked an IT Revolution and Created a Technology Market

This chapter shows how competition among groups shapes moral markets. It explains how the Circuit Riders engaged with the new dominant actor in nonprofit technology assistance, NPower. Through ... More

This chapter shows how competition among groups shapes moral markets. It explains how the Circuit Riders engaged with the new dominant actor in nonprofit technology assistance, NPower. Through successive interactions, new conventions of coordination reduced the uncertainty of interacting in the nonprofit technology assistance market. In response to NPower’s growing dominance, some in the Circuit Rider movement mobilized around an alternative platform, free/open source software. The strategy was an attempt to reassert the founding values of the Circuit Rider movement as articulated in technology. Ultimately, the Circuit Riders had limited success in splitting the technology services market. This chapter illustrates how, once institutionalized, organizational forms and practices like social enterprise are difficult to challenge, but also how social movements can create alternative niches for consumers who share their social values. Because markets are not organized strictly on principles of economic rationality, such pressure can nudge them in socially desirable directions.Less

Open Source, the Expressive Programmer, and the Problem of Property

Thomas Streeter

in The Net Effect: Romanticism, Capitalism, and the Internet

This chapter looks at the open source software movement in the 1990s, which represented a rather sudden and dramatic transformation of dominant managerial principles in the high-tech industries. By ... More

This chapter looks at the open source software movement in the 1990s, which represented a rather sudden and dramatic transformation of dominant managerial principles in the high-tech industries. By 1998, companies such as Apple, IBM, and Netscape were investing heavily in open source software projects, actions that only a year or two earlier would have been considered laughably irrational. While there were economic conditions behind this, principally the Microsoft monopoly, economic forces alone cannot explain why the shift happened when it did. The chapter shows how the shift was enabled by a rearticulation of the romantic construction of computing through a retelling of the story of computer-programming-as-art that situated the narrative against, rather than for, the commodification of code. The effect of Eric Raymond's “Cathedral and Bazaar” essay and the spread of the rhetoric of open source associated with the Open Source Initiative were conditioned upon a widely experienced tension between the experiences of creating software and using computers, and the structures of reward and industrial organization that emerged from commodified software; the same romanticism that had fueled free market visions earlier in the decade was now marshaled against them.Less

How Firms Leverage Crowds and Communities for Open Innovation

Joel West and Jonathan Sims

in Creating and Capturing Value through Crowdsourcing

There are many similarities in how firms pursuing an open innovation strategy can utilize crowds and communities as sources of external innovation. At the same time, the differences between these two ... More

There are many similarities in how firms pursuing an open innovation strategy can utilize crowds and communities as sources of external innovation. At the same time, the differences between these two network forms of collaboration have previously been blurred or overlooked. In this chapter, we integrate research on crowds and communities, identifying a third form—a crowd–community hybrid—that combines attributes of both. We compare examples of each of these three network forms, such as open source software communities, gated contests, crowdsourcing tournaments, user-generated content, and crowd science. We then summarize the intrinsic, extrinsic, and structural factors that enable individual and organizational participation in these collaborations. Finally, we contrast how these collaborative forms differ regarding their degree of innovativeness and relevance to firm goals. From this, we identify opportunities for future research on these topics.Less

The Importance of Open-Source Software Commons

Charles M. Schweik and Robert C. English

in Internet Success: A Study of Open-Source Software Commons

This book explores how openness and the Internet promote innovation and the creation of economic value, citing the growth of the Web, Wikipedia, YouTube, and the open-source software (OSS) ... More

This book explores how openness and the Internet promote innovation and the creation of economic value, citing the growth of the Web, Wikipedia, YouTube, and the open-source software (OSS) application Apache as examples. It examines why and how teams of software developers and users, collaborating over the Internet, can build and maintain software as a form of commons, and, more precisely, discusses the factors that lead some OSS commons to succeed and others to fail. To address these issues, the book draws on literature about software engineering and information systems, along with distributed work and virtual teams, political science and economics—including collective action, social movements, and commons governance and management. It also uses a framework called Institutional Analysis and Development to analyze the technological characteristics of the software, the community aspects of the people involved, and the institutional rules and processes that govern OSS projects. Moreover, the book presents a case study of Open-Source Geospatial Foundation, a nonprofit organization involved in a number of projects on OSS geographic information systems.Less

Defining Open-Source Software Success and Abandonment

Charles M. Schweik and Robert C. English

in Internet Success: A Study of Open-Source Software Commons

This chapter examines the factors that determine the success or abandonment of open-source software (OSS) projects, focusing on the hosting web site SourceForge.net. It describes a theoretical ... More

This chapter examines the factors that determine the success or abandonment of open-source software (OSS) projects, focusing on the hosting web site SourceForge.net. It describes a theoretical classification system for OSS commons, and presents the results of eight interviews with OSS developers to get opinions about definitions of success and abandonment. The chapter discusses the effects of technology, community, and institutions on OSS project success and abandonment.Less

The Road Ahead

Jonathan Band and Masanobu Katoh

in Interfaces on Trial 2.0

This chapter considers various issues that may have more impact on interoperability in the future. These include open-source software, software patents and statutory requirements. This chapter ... More

This chapter considers various issues that may have more impact on interoperability in the future. These include open-source software, software patents and statutory requirements. This chapter explains that while copyright law has evolved in a manner that prevents its use to exercise control of interface specifications, Microsoft and other companies continue to pursue proprietary business strategies, with great success. It also argues that even if copyright does not protect a program’s interface specifications, a patent that applies to the program’s interface or basic functionality can frustrate interoperability with that program.Less

Answering the Questions Raised in Part II

Meng-Shiou Shieh

in Internet Success: A Study of Open-Source Software Commons

This chapter examines both the initiation and growth stages of open-source software (OSS) project development. It systematically reintroduces the hypotheses or research questions concerning the ... More

This chapter examines both the initiation and growth stages of open-source software (OSS) project development. It systematically reintroduces the hypotheses or research questions concerning the factors that determine OSS project success or abandonment and analyzes most of them using contingency tables built based on the responses to The Survey on Free/Libre and Open-Source Success, conducted in fall 2009. After explaining the contingency tables, the chapter considers the technological, community, and institutional attributes that influence success or abandonment. Technological attributes include software requirements, software design (modularity, granularity, complexity), product utility, competition, and collaborative infrastructure. Community attributes include the attributes and motivations of software developers, leadership, and social capital. The chapter also looks at OSS institutions across all project sizes.Less