Imagine product development without manufacturers. Today’s user innovation communities are making that idea increasingly real. Open-source software projects, among others, have led to innovation, development and consumption communities run completely by and for users. Such communities have a great advantage over the manufacturer-centered development systems that have been the mainstay of commerce for hundreds of years. Each using entity, whether an individual or a corporation, is able to create exactly what it wants without requiring a manufacturer to act as its agent. Individual users in a user innovation community do not have to develop everything they need on their own but can benefit from others’ freely shared innovations.
Examples of User Innovation Communities
User innovation communities existed long before the advent of open-source software and extend far beyond it. They are not limited to information products such as software code. Some develop physical products. Consider and compare two examples of early-stage user innovation communities — one in software, the other in sports.
Apache Open-Source Software
Apache open-source software is used on Web server computers that host Web pages and provide appropriate content as requested by Internet browsers. Such computers are the backbone of the World Wide Web.
The server software that evolved into Apache was developed by Rob McCool (at that time a University of Illinois student) for, and while working at, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA).... To read the complete article, login or sign-up using the form below.
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