1 The airplane as an open source invention Peter B. Meyer, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics * Creativity and Entrepreneurship Conference Harvard Business School, Dec 7, 2007 *but findings and views expressed do not represent the agency or the US Dept of Labor

2 Development of the airplane 1860s Aeronautical clubs start in Britain and France a niche/crackpot activity maybe hopeless, useless, and/or dangerous 1894 Survey book by Chanute 1903 Wright brothers’ powered glider flight 1909 An industry is recognized Documentation of this history is excellent Defn: Advanced through openly-shared designs

3 1860s-80s Lilienthal studied “lift” effect in birds and experiments Founded and ran a steam engine company 1889: published Birdflight as the Basis of Aviation : Flew inspirational bird-like hang gliders 1896: Died after crash. Otto Lilienthal’s experiments Motivation: “[A man] longs to soar upward and to glide, free as the bird...” -- Otto Lilienthal, 1889 “The glory of a great... invention... destined to benefit humanity [seemed] dazzling.... Enthusiasm seized [us] at an early age.” -- Gustav Lilienthal, 1912

4 Samuel Langley Professor in Pittsburgh, then Director of Smithsonian Institution in DC Published Experiments in Aerodynamics, 1891 shows his specialized equipment and his careful measures of the effect of rectangular planes whirled on a 30-foot arm His 1896 powered gliders went over half a mile Decides that for safety: aircraft must be intrinsically stable, and pilot must sit up

5 Langley’s aerodrome Resulting aircraft is heavy, expensive, housed with difficulty  Steel materials  Large wings  Powerful engine  Cost ~$50,000 Hard landings; lands on water => can't try twice easily Operator is not too useful, like rocket, unlike glider Langley's demonstrations are big & public In key demos in1903 it crashes early Embarrassed, trustees asked him to stop research

6 Octave Chanute Octave Chanute takes interest in flying machines in late 1880s Wealthy former engineer in Chicago Ran experiments of his own on gliders Described previous work in 1894 book Progress in Flying Machines.  discusses a hundred individuals, from many countries, professions  and many experiments, devices, theories  helps define “flying machines” work, focused on kites  book supports network of information and interested people Chanute corresponded actively with many experimenters. Chanute preferred that everyone’s findings be open.

7 Chanute’s 1894 overview book Progress in Flying Machines cites almost 200 experimenters Experimenter / group Pages location (background) Maxim33 Britain (US) Lilienthal31 Germany Penaud22 France Mouillard21 Algeria, Egypt (Fr) Hargrave19 Australia (Br) Moy19 Britain Le Bris17 France Langley16 US Wenham15 Britain Phillips14 Britain Note: This activity is rare, but global. The Wrights treated Lilienthal, Langley, and Chanute as central.

8 Counts of patents by people with more than two pre-1907 aircraft-related U.S. patents Falconnet 6 Quinby 5 Beeson 3 Bell 3 Blackman 3 Cairncross 3 Fest 3 O’Brate 3 Aircraft people with more than two German patents (including some on non-aircraft topics): Lilienthal, O. 25 Lilienthal, G. 9 Baumgarten 7 Gaebert 6 Lehmann 6 Hofmann 4 Ozeyowski 4 Wellner 4 Czygan 3 Fischer 3 Israel 3 Riedinger, A. 3 (Zeppelin 2, Moy 1) These are counts of patents collected by Simine Short which relate to aircraft, excluding those from after Key observation: this is quite different from the list of people in Chanute’s book or cited by the Wrights. Historians have judged most of these patent-filers to be irrelevant to the development of the airplane.

9 Motivations and modes of experimenters Would like to fly Curiosity, interest in the problem Prestige, recognition Belief in making world a better place Make own nation safer Hoped-for profits They vary in visions of what they are trying to make. They work autonomously, not in hierarchies They form networks and share information They write and publish They specialize, technologically and/or in evangelism

10 In micro-economic model Assume self motivated tinkerers want to progress on some project (inherently rewarding, in utility function) Assume they can’t see how to make a marketable product Can show in model that  They’d be willing to share information with others with similar projects  They’d be willing to specialize to avoid duplication; focus skills and tools  they’d be willing to standardize design design aspects (code interfaces)  so some progress by other tinkerers will snap right in ** Market processes are not necessary for these effects **

11 Role for author / moderator / evangelist Chanute corresponded with, visited, introduced experimenters, and published book In model: A tinkerer’s best opportunity for progress may be editing, writing, speeches, evangelism  To welcome future tinkerers who could generate progress  To avoid duplicate efforts, thru standards and specialization  a uthors/evangelists are another kind of specialist tinkerer Octave Chanute, 1894: “The writer’s object in preparing these articles was threefold: 1. To satisfy himself whether... men might reasonably hope eventually to fly To save... effort on the part of experimenters trying again devices which have already failed. 3. To... render it less chimerical... to experiment with a flying machine....” Analogously: Lilienthal’s public demonstrations; Felsenstein at Homebrew; open source programmers Stallman, Torvalds, etc.

12 Wright brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright ran a bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio. Motivations: “I am an enthusiast...” “I wish to... add my mite to help on the future worker who will attain final success." -- Wilbur Wright, 1899 "At the beginning we had no thought of recovering what we were expending, which was not great..." -- Orville Wright, How We Invented the Airplane, [1953] p. 87 Here, Wrights help test Octave Chanute’s triple-wing glider., October 1902  Advantages: They are skilled, precise toolsmiths. They are in a workshop every day. Open sourcing: They published, spoke at meetings, had visits from Chanute and others.

13 Kites, gliders, then powered glider They flew kites a long time, then made gliders. Didn’t try adding an engine till they were pretty sure it would work 1902 glider can be still flown as kite

14 Wrights wind tunnel, new wings, propeller discovery Wrights’ wind tunnel created for smooth air flow Their balance device measured lift precisely They tested many wings systematically What’s a propeller for an aircraft? Earlier idea: it would push air back. Wrights try propellers shaped like wings, with lift in forward direction This produces ~40% more pulling power This idea lasts

15 First powered controlled flight, Dec 17, 1903 In late 1902 and subsequently they were more secretive, having succeeded so well with their wings. They filed a patent on their control mechanism for the wings. Analogously, Apple founders left Homebrew Club; Red Hat is now a company

16 Alternative models of invention (1) Network of tinkerers: a population of agents with i nterest in a problem (a 0 ), worthwhile opportunities (p), information flows between them (f)  experimentation and socially constructed “progress” No pool of information, nor incentives, nor technical measure of improvement. (2) Race to be first (space race; genome project) (3) Collective invention (Allen, 1983)  but those are (a) firms, (b) not paying costs to experiment (4) To earn income or wealth indirectly  Start company, or license patented invention  signal to employers; get hired as engineer (Lerner and Tirole, 2002)

17 Possible lessons, conclusions, inferences, in no particular order This generates inventions, as by: Hobbyists, “Skunkworks” inside organizations, basic researchers, and a n industry can arise this way Innovators need some capability and scope to operate, to figure out what they need Useful innovators were closely tied to their tools and traditions The inventor and the invention are remembered jointly until the invention becomes standard equipment.

18 Parallels to open source Roles for technology-focused developers and for goal-focused moderator/evangelists

19 Economic model

20 More inferences some problems are too hard to solve by one hierarchical person/group but an open-source process can do it experimentation may be necessary because one cannot see the end product during innovation process; Inventors may appear if there is an opportunity to network. (not predictable, perhaps). Innovation is all over the place. In the airplane case, many people were involved, informed, and helpful. (I think) open source innovation is common but gets relabeled as the outcome of a formal project.

21 More possible inferences It helps if the inventors can find one another Thought experiment: suppose you wanted to slow the development of the airplane?  It’s not possible to identify everyone who might experiment at home.  But it might be possible to prevent or restrict publications, mailing;. raise the price of paper; shut down innovators once they self-identified, etc