Entries in the Category "Open Source"
Open Source, Beyond Software Development
In a corporate world where companies would like everyone to think that they are driving innovation, there is still a lot of innovation being driven by communities and regular consumers. The community based model of open source allows for direct input of the target users and virtually eliminates problems with meeting consumer demand. In the paper by Sonali K. Shah (an Assistant Professor in the Organization Behavior Group at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) entitled “Open Beyond Software”, she describes the innovation that has occurred in sporting equipment through the communities of users, “Both users and manufacturers contributed to the development of equipment innovations in the windsurfing, skateboarding, and snowboarding industries.” The cooperation that occurred in these sectors is the same type that occurs in software or hardware design and can be applied to a wide range of other areas. Companies spend millions on market research when by utilizing an open model the hard work is done for them. Sonali K. Shah explained this idea eloquently by concluding, “In short, the principle that Richard Stallman succinctly defined in the GNU General Public License – that people must be free to use, modify, and distribute – applies to creative and innovative activity in many fields, not just software.”
Intellectual Property
For open source to succeed in any environment one specific obstacle must be addressed. This is the reluctance of some to accept a lack of individually owned intellectual property rights, because with open source there is not one single owner of the design and product being created. For example if we open source a design then anyone can produce the product based on that design (in actuality it depends on the specific license that the authors used for the design, but for discussions sake lets say a pure open source license). If no one owns the rights to the design then there are also implications of a lack of accountability and this idea presents a struggle for many who are used to proprietary products that have warranties and legally accountable entities. The only way that open source can overcome these hurdles is by convincing those people that the advantages of the open design can exceed the risks of a lack of accountability. In reality if there is a problem then it is easier to diagnose with open source and therefore accountability should not be as important when the users have the ability to find, fix, or suggest solutions to problems. The views of users have to change in order for them to accept the open source model.
Leadership and Open Source
With the model of open collaboration, open source may seem to provide little room for a single leader. People may perceive that it is hard to lead a group of people that are used to working on equal grounds with other developers. In actuality this is not the case and if we look at any of the major open source projects it is clear that there is a hierarchy of contributors. What determines this structure comes down to the basic principle of contribution and who is considered valuable to the project. Individuals like Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman are leaders in their own sense due to their expertise and large amount of contributions. A good example of their leadership occurred recently when Linus himself created a patch for a proof of concept virus for the Linux operating system (and if you weren’t sure Linus created the Linux OS, hence the name).
The method for assigning leadership is not something that is explicitly defined in most cases, but in the situations where someone has started a project they generally have a larger role in the development and decision process for the project. But one of the best aspects of open source is the ability of anyone who is motivated to take a leadership role in the project. If I was extremely interested in a project and was able to contribute, I would gain respect and possibly more clout when it came to project decisions. It is informal, but the model allows for dedicated and capable individuals to take leading roles in open source projects.
Hybrids
They can save money and increase efficiency, but in this case I am not talking about the increasingly popular hybrid automobiles. I am talking about a hybrid model of open source and other services. There is a growing group of companies that offer open source solutions bundled to meet certain industries needs and expectations. In this case I am referring to products that are more likely found in the tech and software field, but there are open source designs of miscellaneous products that could offer the same benefits. Hybrid models allow companies to support and distribute open source products and offer additional services, some examples that spring to mind are the Novell Linux distribution SUSE and the other is the customer relation management software SugarCRM. Both of the companies offer support for products that offer the benefits of open source such as customizability, cheaper and quicker development, as well as increased security. They sell products developed with the open source model but add additional value through packaging, distribution, and technical support. There is a large opportunity to push open source into the mainstream with the help of these types of companies and with other supporters of open source such as Sun Microsystems. For more info on this topic check out this link.
Open Source and Privacy
With the buzz in the news lately about privacy invasion, eavesdropping, and suspicious software (ex. Sony root kit), it is easy to see that there is a lot of concern over these issues. This presents another opportunity to discuss the advantages of open source. As we know with the open source model the making of the system are open to everyone including the users, which makes it very hard to hide things within the system without anyone knowing. For example if I am going to download an open source music player I can be pretty sure that there is not going to be any spyware in it. For a non-tech example we can see that in an open source style organization, in this case I will discuss a non-profit organization, there is no way the organization could use resources for suspicious or criminal activities. With all of the makings of the organization including the financial documents and lists of available resources, it would be difficult to become involved in unrelated activities. For software can be a little easier to comprehend, and I think that as government and individuals become aware of the risks of using non-open source software there will be more widespread acceptance. The model provides comfort to the users and allows free modification so even if there was something suspicious in a program it could be removed. The advantages of open source and the philosophy will allow a more secure world for computing as well as provide a model for transparent organizations.
The Reds are Comin!!!
I apologize for the extended break. It has been a busy couple weeks, but there has also been a lot of buzz around open source since I last wrote. Some of which includes articles on the explosion of linux in China and a bunch of news stories about open source standards. There has even been changes going on at Microsoft shown by their creation of open source labs within the company that are used to aid in operability with open source software. I do not know exactly what they do there, but it is nice to see them move in this direction. The bad reputation that open source has had in the past seems to have stemmed from corporate resistance, but with large companies such as Redhat and SugarCRM leveraging open source, the reputation is cleaning up. Some of the principles of community and sharing were often linked to communist philosophies, which I find very humorous and a feeble attempt to associate negative ideas to open source. However today things are looking up for open source and I happened to find a video that makes fun of this idea that open source is evil and a “tool of the communists”. Check it out…
Government Goes Open Source
The US government has finally adopted the open source model!! Well, not really but it is using the model to get some work done. The federal government has released captured documents from Iraq and is requesting the publics help in translating them. Volunteers have been tearing through the documents, translating and making comments, and by opening the work to the public the government has been able to save money and use recourses for higher priority needs. This is a very good example of the efficiency of the open source model, and illustrates that by allowing everyone to have access to the materials and by encouraging collaboration, a project can be finished quickly and cheaply. There are also positives associated with accuracy, as everyone can see the documents therefore any mistakes can be easily found from the many eyes reviewing the materials. Here is a link to the story.
Motivations of a Community
I think that one of the most important aspects of open source philosophy is the community. I had talked about the use of the community as the tool for delegating tasks and monitoring each other, but I think that the community concept is extremely important and will only grow more relevant as time passes.
Before I continue about open source communities and the culture of open source, I must reiterate something. When talking about open source as a general philosophy or method of production and project development, the most important terms related to open source are accessibility and collaboration. Because the project and the included materials, designs, ideas, or etc. are accessible to the public, the vested interests of the community will support collaboration on the work involved. Everyone is welcome to become involved as long as they make valuable contributions and the open collaboration provides a good system of monitoring changes and additions.
Every individual can be credited with their work, which they complete because of their own interests and a community forms based on accomplishments and contributions. The individuals have a need for the product or they gain something intangible such as pride for their work. The community may be initially motivated by personal interests, but they are all focused on the same goal and all gain from the progress of the project.
With this environment of collaboration and volunteer participation, the most motivated become increasingly involved and a community of devoted individuals develops. This is not to say that others cannot be involved to a lesser degree, but when looking at some of the major examples of open source there is normally a group of people that provide most of the contributions. In short, the most active community members gain respect and in some cases a very close community can develop though the open source system of collaboration.
Community of Fans
I thought of another example concerning an open source type approach to delegating work and creating a product. I was at a concert recently and I was watching someone taking pictures of the concert when I realized that at a lot of venues, there is a paid photographer. This is not always the case because there can be a friend taking pictures or one provided by the venue. However this is what I would equate to the propriety type way of acquiring a portfolio of pictures of that evening’s concert. This is because the documenting of the concert is done “in house” or by someone connected to the band. On the other hand some bands “open” the work of taking pictures to the fans. They do this by allowing cameras and encouraging the fans to upload the pictures to their website. This means that there can be many people taking pictures of the concert and there is much more comprehensive coverage of the event. This method does however have risks, those being that the quality can not be guaranteed and the use and distribution of the photos may be hard to monitor. To this concern I would say why not involve the fans some more! Let them vote on the best pictures and have them ranked on the site so the best pictures are available to everyone. The vote would encourage people to put forth more effort and upload creative and increasingly higher quality photos. This could also draw the fans into a community because of the collaboration and further aid in maintaining quality artwork. Not only would this include the fans more with the band, but all of the work of shooting, developing or transferring, and editing would be done by the people who care the most about the band, THE FANS!!
Everything from the community created through the process to the availability of all the pictures on the site for rankings, echoes of the open source philosophy. I guess it all comes down to the bands preferences, but I think that the positives of the open approach far outweigh the negatives.
Open Source in the News
Open source has been in the news a lot lately here are some links worth looking at.
http://www.techworld.com/applications/news/index.cfm?NewsID=5615
http://oci.open.ac.uk/
It is important to realize the implications of these events. The adoption of an open source university will allow everyone to access the material that make up curriculums and learning plans, which will likely spur a lot of comments and feedback about the material. This pretty much provides endless free advice for improvements. The same can be said about the open sourcing of the processors. If anyone can look at the design not only will it allow individuals to better program for the chips but also provide feedback to Sun about possible improvements. The work that would normally be delegated within the company is now outsourced for free, while also gaining a lot of support from open source advocates.
Cookies!!
The open source development model is most prominent in the area of computer programming, but it can also be found and applied to other industries and situations. A simple example such as a cookie recipe could illustrate the basics of the system. Let’s say that I have the need for a delicious batch of cookies and I am rather inexperienced with cookie baking. However I throw together a basic recipe and post it on my blog. I could even say this recipe is under a Creative Commons License (there are a few options available here), but for this example I am just stating that it is free to modify, remix, and redistribute all non-commercially, which would allow others to change the recipe however they want.
Now my good friend Liz also has the need for a delicious batch of cookies, and discovers my recipe online. However Liz could think there are some problems with the current configuration and recommend changes such as adding some salt, chocolate chips, peanut butter, or whatever else. This is different than if we were to buy some cookies from the grocery store, because we have access to the design of the product (in this case the cookie recipe). So after numerous suggestions or “fixes” to the recipe I can create a delicious batch of cookies.
This example explains the mechanics of open source collaboration, but what is important is the automatic allocation of resources that occurs under open source development. In the case of the cookies, the people that contribute to the project are the ones that need the product. This would suggest that the people that are most enthusiastic about the product are the ones developing it, but what I want to ask is if this also implies that the most qualified people are the ones working on the project. There is an important distinction between the most qualified and most enthusiastic, and in the cookie example I started the recipe, but had little experience with cookie baking. Are there implications that there is a tradeoff between the two or are the most qualified the ones that are also the most involved. I will go into this in more detail later on.
New Directions
I think that the environment for open source and the open source model are a good thing to examine at this point in time. Open source projects and the ideology behind open source development have never really become mainstream, until more recently when a few groups proved the advantages of the model. I mentioned a few before but one of my favorite examples is the rebirth of Netscape Navigator as the open source Firefox. The browser is a magnificent alternative to Internet Explorer and it is worth checking out. On the other hand here has also been negative sentiment for open source, most likely because of the competition it provides for proprietary products (side note: if anyone is interested in some viewpoints coming from Microsoft about the topic of open source, then I recommend running a Google search on "Halloween Documents"). A rather interesting video that I came across while looking into RedHat, includes some background on open source as well an a good example of the progress of open source based companies. The video is somewhat a propaganda film but the stance it makes shows some of the residual feelings between the open source community and standard industries as well as some messages about the motivations behind open source. It’ s a little long, but interesting.
Check out http://www.redhat.com/en_us/USA/truthhappens/ for more.
Feedback Mechanisms (cont...)
The open source model benefits from a different model for feedback, because often the largest users of the product are involved heavily in the development of the product. Also distributors are less prevalent with open source projects; this is because the vendors/users take charge of distributing the product.
However, there have been many changes in the environment of open source projects because recently distributors have stepped up to offer packed open source products with added value such as support or customization. Some examples are Suse, Redhat, and SugarCRM. But in these cases, there is still a large community based around the products because the sources are available to everyone (although some companies only release some parts of the complete code). The fundamental structure is still in place and the feedback loop for open source development is uncommonly fast.
Feedback Mechanisms
To follow up on the last post, I am going to explain (in a rather general sense) the feedback model associated with open source development.
There are three main groups in a general feedback loop and in this case I am going to describe them as vendors, distributors, and users. The vendors are the ones who create the product, guide the production of the product, or are involved in some major way to the service or product. The distributors are those that help distribute, market, and deal with users. Lastly, the users are the consumers or clients of the vendor’s services and products. In the closed source or proprietary model of development the feedback from users has to go backwards through the channels of the distributor then back to the venders. This diagram illustrates the process of feedback.
This may not be true for all industries and circumstances, but a great example of this is in the area most associated with open source, and that is operating systems. Microsoft, which practices a closed source model, receives feedback most often through its distributors such as Dell, Sony, or any other pc manufacturer. The users must call the pc manufacturer’s customer service and rarely do the end users contact Microsoft directly. The majority of users of the closed source projects are not involved with the development of the product.
Distribution Model and Feedback
To start off let’s talk about open source and how it relates to software development. The concepts can be easily applied to other areas, but this is the most common example. In the old model of software creation, in which proprietary software is created, there is a very different development cycle. Proprietary software begins as an idea for a product that is developed behind closed doors until the product is ready for release. Then the company provides the software to users, through whichever channels they prefer, and update the software as the engineers see fit.
This is in contrast to the usual method for closed source development, in which a need is determined and usually and individual or small group of individuals decide to start a project to fulfill that need. A good example of this is the Linux operating system. The origin of Linux is rooted in the need for a free operating system to replace the closed Unix and Minix operating systems. Linus Torvalds was teaching OS design at the time and decided to take the initiative to create Linux, he created a groundwork then released the code on the internet, drawing thousands of other developers into the project. Linus identified a personal need and tried to fulfill it, but it was obvious that others shared this need and over time the project has grown quite large.
Once a project has been started and the needs identified, collaboration between other developers and users develops the product. Improvements can happen very fast when the people who are using the product are often the same ones creating it, and because the makings of the product are open to everyone it is thought that it is easier to find problems or bugs. As Richard Stallman the author of the Cathedral and the Bazzaar wrote, "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow." He called this Linus’ Law after the creator of Linux and this law seems to be a rather accurate description of the effectiveness of the open source model.
Other examples of open source projects include the Firefox web browser, OpenOffice.org which is a free alternative to MS Office, and even whole video games. TO find out more about opens source gaming check out osgaming.net or Open Source Games for Windows. Also as a fellow Case blogger, Jeremy wrote about Case’s use of open source:
“Our Wiki is open source as is our Single Sign On server. So are the underlying web servers that power them and the database(and more)... Identity Management System runs on open source power as does the Software Center.”
So as we can see open source is around us everywhere and the topic is only going to be become more relevant in the future as open source gains more recognition.
I am more than happy to address and questions or mistakes I may have made, otherwise next time I will try to go into more depth about the feedback loops of open source projects.
Open Source Definition
What I am going to be focusing on is the actual model based around the open source definition, but in order to better explain this model, the term "open source" needs to be defined. Open source in the most general sense means that the makings of a product are accessible to everyone, this could be the code for a program, design of a circuit board, recipe, or even music and video. It is generally accepted that the term “open source” was originally chosen after the source code of what was called Mozilla was released in 1999 by Netscape. But, there are also others who claim that open source was born with the advent of the internet, but was not fully named until 1999.
Most often the term open source is associated with software and the availability of access the source, but the philosophy can be transferred to other areas as well. A good example of this is an open source beer named Vores Øl. Their website goes into more detail link, but the concept is basically a recipe for beer that is shared with everyone and is open for changes. This is one application of defining a product as open source, but what is more relevant is the development model associated with open source. With the original assets and makeup of the products available to its users, there can be a large amount of interaction between the people using the product and those creating the product. The communication that takes place is aided even more because in most situations, the people who are contributing to the product are the ones who used it and had ideas for improvements, becoming more and more involved.
In my next post I am going to go into more detail about the model and give some examples of great open source projects.
The Begining
My name is Mat and I am currently enrolled in a class entitled Managing Organizations and People II. It is the continuation of the first section that took place last semester. I intend to use this blog as a discussion tool for the course, as well as utilize this space to draw attention to different things that I come across during my experience in school and the business world. One of my main topics of discussion is going to involve the organizational model of open source projects. If you are not familiar with the concept of open source, I recommend this wikipedia article link as well as the links provided on the main page. Wikipedia is one of my favorite sites because I have found it to be one of the most comprehensive tools available on the internet, and the site illustrates an excellent example of the power of a contributing community. I am excited to start this blog and I hope that you find some interest in my ramblings.