Towards a Theory for Understanding the Open Source Phenomenon Kasper Edwards Technical University of Denmark Department of Manufacturing Engineering and Management

Agenda  My perspective  Introducing open source software  Open source software as economic goods  A community-based institutional framework  A capitalistic, institutional framework

My perspective  Background  Engineer  Tainted with economics  Economics of technology  The technology must be taken into account  Data  Hours of interviews with open source developers  Personal interest / involvement

Introducing open source software  What is open source software?  Software like any other software  Access to the source code, which may be modified  Create derived works  Create and distribute copies  How is open source software developed?  Organised in individual projects  The central figure is the maintainer  Communications are done mostly using web-based media  Mailing lists are the central means of communication

 The open source software development cycle 1.Maintainer releases software and source code 2.User downloads software and source code 3.User identifies problems or needed features 4.User implements corrections 5.Contributor returns corrections to the Maintainer for inclusion 6.Corrections are discussed 7.Maintainer includes changes and release a new version

The problem of understanding Open Source Software  Observations  Open source software is being developed and exchanged  Some open source products have market dominance  Private individuals contribute to the development  Commercial enterprises contribute to the development  Open source software development is not without cost  Time and/or money  People and especially enterprises must make a living

Economic theory of goods  There is a long tradition that economists try to understand goods  How benefits can be appropriated

Open source software as a good  Technical properties  A digital being - unlimited copies at insignificant cost  Instantaneous mass-distribution »Open source software is non-rival in consumption  License properties  Free redistribution  The source code must be available »Open source software is non-excludable A pure public good

Theoretical consequences of being pure public good  Under-provision  What is underprovided has not been developed  Massive free riding  Free-riding in open source: Development not returned to the project  There is a penalty from not returning developments to the maintainer  The question  Why is open source software being developed?

Different approaches to the question  Why is open source software is being developed?  A research object  Altruism  It is intrinsically rewarding  To gain reputation  To build a CV  To develop open source software instead of buying software

An analytical problem  Two groups of actors  Unpaid voluntary developers  Commercial enterprises  Could we understand both within the same theory?  I believe not  Prima facie it must be assumed that they have different incentives  They might even adhere to different inner logic  Two different institutional frameworks  The community-based institutional framework  The capitalistic, institutional framework

The community based institutional framework  Observation  Many are developing open source software  OSS development is time consuming  There is no monetary reward  Properties of the open source organisation  Very loosely coupled network  Limited communications bandwidth  Characterising members of epistemic communities  A shared set of normative and principled beliefs  Shared causal beliefs  Shared notions of validity  A common policy enterprise

OSS projects as an epistemic community  Shared normative and principled beliefs  Strong belief in empowerment of users  A counter culture  Shared causal beliefs  Contributors have programming experience (or are gaining)  Provision of a common understanding of how to solve a problem  Shared notions of validity  Important when choosing between solutions  Provision of a common understanding of why a solution was chosen  Two criteria: 1) Performance, and 2) Beauty  Common policy enterprise  Freedom of choice  Freedom to expand and change software to fit personal needs

Theoretical consequences of epistemic communities  Possible to collaborate with minimal communication  A shared mindset  The code say more than a thousand words  Little or no need for co-ordination  Implicit understanding of the direction of the project  Problems of epistemic communities  A static analysis to a dynamic phenomenon  Epistemic communities does not explain entry into projects

Legitimate peripheral participation  Becoming part of a project is a learning process  Every project has its own idiosyncrasies  Learning is situated  Knowledge cannot be de-coupled from situation  Learning can only be done through participation  Learners are trying to become insiders  Consequences of legitimate peripheral participation  Learners are not able to participate in core activities  Learners can contribute to peripheral activities  Learners must be allowed to participate  Learners must be allowed to be part of the community practice  By participating learners become part of the community

 Summing up the community based institutional framework  Possible to collaborate with minimal communication  Development is a learning process  Situated learning describes the learning process

The Capitalistic Institutional Framework  Observations  Commercial enterprises contribute to open source development  A market divided: »The Windows platform »The other platforms  Perspective  Understanding at the level of the industry  Understanding motivation  Applications matter to the user – platforms are just an enabler

 Theory  Computing platforms and applications are compatibility regimes  Network effects  Increasing returns on several levels »Application developers - Retail outlet - Users  Competing technologies and lock-in  Theoretical Consequences  The ‘others’ can only survive as niche players as the number of applications diminish  To compete they need to establish a credible alternative

 Open Source Software is one such alternative  Difficult to hijack development  Combined effort makes for fast development  Commercial enterprises have incentives  Create an alternative platform and attract applications  Develop applications to attract users/costumers  Influence on platform development  Freedom to develop new hardware for the platform  Concluding the capitalistic institutional framework  It makes sense to make a perspective of competing technologies  OSS as a platform provides a singular opportunity to create one credible alternative to the Windows platform

Conclusion  Are we on the way towards a theory?  Yes, but only parts of the phenomenon  Different institutional frameworks seem appropriate  Community-based institutional framework  The code says more than a thousand words  Describes and helps to understand the process  Capitalistic institutional framework  Platform competition show an incentive to contribute to development  An open source platform might be the credible alternative