Participation in OS projects: Commercial and Individual motivation

Introduction A quick poll of developers would give a list of reasons an individual might contribute resources, but why would a commercial operation give stuff away for free? Phase 1:Go Open Source Phase 2:? Phase 3:Profit[1] In this presentation we compare what motivates individuals and companies to participate in OSS

Motivation Motivation is the activation of goal-oriented behaviour. – Intrinsic motivation refers to motivation that is driven by an interest or enjoyment in the task itself – Extrinsic motivation comes from outside of the individual. Motivations areas – Economic (E) – Social (S) – Technological (T)

Internal Factors from Hars and Ou [2] Intrinsic Motivation – Inborn need to feel competent and self determining Community Identification – Maslow´s hierarchy of needs Altruism – Providing something at own cost Time, Energy, Opportunity cost

External Factors from Hars and Ou [2] Future Rewards – Revenue – Develop Human Capital – Self Marketing – Peer Recognition Personal Needs – Many projects start to satisfy a personal need

Individuals – Who? Hars and Ou [2] provide a breakdown

Individuals – Why? [3] Learn and develop new skills78.9% Share knowledge and skills49.8% Participate in a new form of cooperation34.5% Improve open source products of other developers33.7% Participate in the open source scene30.6% Think that software should not be a proprietary good30.1% Solve a problem that could not be solved by proprietary software29.7% Improve my job opportunities23.9% Get help in realizing a good idea for a software product23.8% Limit the power of large software companies19% Get a reputation in the open source community9.1% Distribute not marketable software products8.9% Make money4.4% Don’t know1.9%

Corporate motivations OS allows small companies to innovate Contributions and feedback from the OS community is seen useful, to fix bugs and improve software Improve reliability and quality of software To be independent of the licence policies of the large SW companies Agreement with the values of the free SW movement.

Company categories Different types of companies have different motivations – HW product companies use OS to boost HW sell – SW product companies use OS community as an external team to improve their products. – Service companies have the business value in the complementary services – Start-up companies can create new business case or innovation on the existing code base – No license fees – No big investment

Other Business strategies Fight against a company having strong market share in a specific application area If a company cannot solve some complex problem, OS can be one solution. Create a good image

Corporate vs. individual Companies have more economic and technological motivations. [4] Major differences in motivations – – Motivates developer Code should be free (S) Learning incentive (T) – – Motivates company Improve SW, better reliability and quality (T) Similarities – – Co-operation with the developers (S)

Paid Developers Key value proposition for company is for employees to be committers who: Key value proposition for company is for employees to be committers who: Determine strategy of the OS project Determine strategy of the OS project Can get problems fixed faster and better Can get problems fixed faster and better Has higher visibility in the Community Has higher visibility in the Community Provides marketing advantage Provides marketing advantage Makes the Company a more interesting / attractive employer Makes the Company a more interesting / attractive employer –[5]

The Community Expects Commitment Commitment Openness Openness Transparency Transparency Giving back Giving back

References 1.Underpants Gnomes 2.Hars & Ou, Working for Free? – Motivations of Participating in Open Source Projects 3.Wang, He & Chen, Motivations of Individuals and Firms participating in open source community 4.Andrea Bonaccorsi, Cristina Rossi. Comparing motivations of individual programmers and firms to take part in the Open Source movement. From community to business 5.Riehle, Dirk, The Economic Motivation of Open Source Software: Stakeholder Perspectives