Open-source software development projects — Internet-based communities of software developers who voluntarily collaborate in order to develop software that they or their organizations need — have become an important economic and cultural phenomenon. Sourceforge.net, a major infrastructure provider and repository for such projects, lists more than 10,000 of them and more than 300,000 registered users. The digital software products emanating from such projects are commercially attractive and widely used in business and government (by IBM, NASA and the German government, to name just a few). Because such products are deemed a “public good” — meaning that one person’s use of them does not diminish another’s benefits from them — the open-source movement’s unique development practices are challenging the traditional views of how innovation should work.
A Brief History
In the 1960s and 1970s, software development was carried out mostly by scientists and engineers working in academic, government and corporate laboratories. They considered it a normal part of their research culture to freely exchange, m odify and build upon one another’s software, both individually and collaboratively. In 1969, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) established the ARPAnet, the first transcontinental, high-speed computer network. ARPAnet allowed developers to exchange software code and other information widely, easily, swiftly and cheaply. It grew in popularity and eventually linked several universities, defense contractors and research laboratories. However, its limits... To read the complete article, login or sign-up using the form below.
Become a premium subscriber today to read this and all MIT Sloan Managmeent Review articles.
Buy this article. Purchase one or more copies of this article in PDF form.
Become a premium subscriber today to read this article and the entire archive of MIT SMR articles.
Upgrade your existing subscription to premium
Sign in if you are a premium subscriber.
Do you subscribe the MIT Sloan Management Review in print? Enter the email address and password you used when ordering. Don't remember? Lookup your subscription account information
- Register for free access to recent articles and the current issue of MIT Sloan Management Review.
- Subscribe and read articles from the past three years online.
- Premium subscription give you access to the entire archive of articles.
