Search results

Interorganizational reciprocity plays a key role in relationships among software firms and open source communities. This study seeks to illuminate how a firm's open source strategy, characterized by its participation in the open source community, contributes to its financial performance.

Based on the norm of reciprocity and social capital theory, the study proposes a model comprising the behavioral antecedents and business results of a firm's symbiotic relationship with the open source community. Data were collected through a survey. Partial least squares-based structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to assess the results.

A firm's participative behaviors can have three dimensions: technology giving, technology taking and social participation. Technology taking directly impacts financial performance, whereas the effects of technology giving and social participation on financial performance are fully mediated by the firm's symbiotic relationship with the open source community.

Managers can understand how a specific behavior ultimately contributes to a symbiotic relationship or a firm's financial performance and how to flexibly align participation strategies with the business orientation.

The study adds to the open source literature by refining and enriching the conceptual domain of a firm's participative behaviors in open source communities. It also reveals how contrasting behavioral strategies impact a firm's financial performance.

Open Source software companies (OSSCs) are confronted with institutional pressures from Open Source software (OSS) communities. They must find an acceptable balance between the expectations of these communities and their own business model. However, there are still few studies that try to analyse the OSSC business models. The purpose of this paper is to highlight OSSC typical business models by using rich empirical data.

The methodology is based on a combination of quantitative analysis of a sample of 66 OSSCs and qualitative analysis of three typical situations resulting from that sample.

The quantitative study enables the authors to highlight three typical business models. The in-depth study of three typical cases enables the authors to specify these OSSC business models. The authors can distinguish four key dimensions: the relationship developed with the OSS communities, the strategic manoeuvres made, the key resources and competitive positioning.

The results indicate that it is possible for firms to accommodate both profit and non-profit logics using different strategic manoeuvres to position themselves with regard to the Open Source institutional environment. Such accommodation requires the development of key resources and the adoption of suitable competitive positioning.

This study allows the authors to highlight two main practical contributions for OSSCs’ directors. First, the different manoeuvres identified may help them to ensure coherence between their strategic choices and the business model chosen. Second, the results can help OSSC founders identify value creation mechanisms more clearly by analysing four key variables.

This paper provides new insight about OSSCs business models. It aggregates four dimensions that provide a more “fine-grained” analysis of business models, while other studies often emphasise one dimension (usually the regime of appropriability).

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature about the commercial involvement in open source software, levels of this involvement and consequences of attempting to mix various logics of action.

This paper uses the case study approach based on mixed methods: literature reviews and news searches, electronic surveys, qualitative interviews and observations. It combines discussions from several research projects as well as previous publications to present the scope of commercial choices within open source software and their consequences.

The findings show that higher levels of involvement in open source software communities poses important questions about the balance between economic, technological, and social logics as well as the benefits of being autonomous, having access to collaborative networks and minimizing risks related to free-riding. There are six levels of commercial involvement in open source communities, and each of them is characterized by a different dilemma.

The paper sheds light on the various level of involvement of business in open source movement and emphasize that the popularized “open innovation” concept is only the first step in real involvement and paradigm shift.

Although extant theory has illuminated conditions under which organizations mimic each other in form and practice, little research examines how organizations seek to differentiate themselves from conventional forms. Our comparative ethnographic studies examine how the Burning Man and Open Source communities developed organizations to help coordinate the production of an annual temporary arts event and nonproprietary, freely distributed software. Both communities sought to differentiate their organizations from reference groups, but this was not a sufficient condition for sustaining organizational novelty. We found that the ability to pursue a differentiated strategy was moderated by environmental conditions. By exploring the organizing decisions that each community made at two critical boundaries: one defining individuals’ relationship with the organization; the second defining the organization's relationship with the market, we show how organizing practices were recombined from the for-profit and nonprofit sectors in unexpected, novel ways. This comparative research contributes a grounded theoretical explanation of organizational innovation that adjudicates between differentiation and environmental conditions.

Theories of platform strategy and adoption have been largely derived from studies of their application in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector. These platforms vary in openness, with the model of open source software providing the best-known exemplar for open platforms.

This exploratory field study examines the degree to which nine attributes of ICT platforms are applicable to open platforms in biotechnology. Using a combination of interview and secondary data, it identifies three patterns of such biotechnology platforms – IP commons, hackerspaces, and crowdsourced patient registries – and the degree to which these nine attributes apply. It shows the impact of ICT platforms and open source software on open source approaches to biotechnology, and how the latter are affected by the technical, legal, and institutional differences between information technology and biotechnology.

Instead of open source software platforms organized around modular interfaces, complements, ecosystems, and two-sided markets, this study instead suggests a model of open source knowledge platforms which benefits from economies of scale but not indirect network effects. From this, it discusses the generalizability of the ICT-derived models of open source platforms and offers suggestions for future research.

The paper has three purposes: the first is to provide a deeper understanding of the ideology and work practices of free and open source software development, the second to characterize the free software movement as a new type of computerization movement and the third to present a conceptual diagram and framework with an analysis showing how the free software computerization movement has evolved into an occupational community.

Qualitative data were collected over a four year period using a virtual ethnography in a study of free and open source software development and, in particular, a study of a free software community, GNUenterprise, located at www.gnuenterprise.org, which has the goal of developing a free enterprise resource planning software system.

It is concluded that the ideology of the free software movement continues to be one of the factors which mobilize people to contribute to free and open source software development. This movement represents a new type of computerization movement which promotes the investment of time in learning a new software development process instead of investment of money in the acquisition and use of new technology.

The research findings are limited by a detailed study of only one free software development project.

This paper is of significance to software developers and managers of firms who wish to incorporate free and open source software into their companies.

This research presents an original conceptual diagram and framework for how computerization movements have emerged into an occupational community.

The purpose of this paper is to promote the opportunities of open source software (OSS) development in aeronautics. Using the development of an open source framework for conceptual aircraft design as an example, this paper discusses how an inter‐organizational collaboration between industry and academia can build an environment for multi‐disciplinary aircraft design projects.

The paper takes the form of a literature study and comparison of software tools.

The open source model can facilitate the emergence of a large inter‐organizational community in aeronautics for developing a comprehensive software framework.

Developing a general OSS framework for conceptual aircraft design has the potential of attracting a large community for inter‐organizational collaboration on software tools for a multi‐disciplinary optimization (MDO) environment.

Using the concepts of open source in aeronautics has the potential to improve the collaboration among industry and academia on developing software tools for an MDO environment.

This paper addresses innovations based on open source or non‐proprietary knowledge. Viewed through the lens of private property theory, such agency appears to be a true anomaly. However, by a further turn of the theoretical kaleidoscope, we will show that there may be perfectly justifiable reasons for not regarding open source innovations as anomalies. The paper is based on three sectorial and generic cases of open source innovation, which is an offspring of contemporary theory made possible by combining elements of the model of private agency with those of the model of collective agency. In closing, the paper addresses implications for further research, practitioners and other policy‐makers.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the level of awareness and use of open source integrated library system (ILS) by the library and information science (LIS) professionals in India. Further, it examines whether qualification, experience of using open source ILS and participation in open source community/mailing list by the LIS professionals affect their level of awareness and use of different open source ILSs.

An online survey was conducted to assess the level of awareness and use of open source ILS by LIS professionals of India. In total, 408 responses were collected from LIS professionals in India, and the collected data were analysed using descriptive statistics and Pearson’s Chi-Square.

The findings of the study reveal that the level of awareness and use of open source ILS, namely, Koha (Mean = 2.69, SD = 0.944) and NewGenLib (Mean = 2.19, SD = 0.703) are high among the LIS professionals in India. Koha is the most favoured open source ILS. The results reveal that educational background, experience of using open source software (OSS) and participation in open source community/mailing list affect their level of awareness and use of open source ILS.

The paper will help decision makers to adopt and use popular open source ILS in their libraries.

This paper is the first of its kind that explores the level of awareness and use of open source ILS by LIS professionals in India in a broad manner.

In this essay we argue that the current social and ethical structure in the Open Source Software (OSS) Community stem from its roots in academia. The individual developers experience a level of autonomy similar to that of a faculty member. Furthermore, we assert that the Open Source Software Community’s social structure demands benevolent leadership. We argue that it is difficult to pass off low quality open source software as high quality software and that the Open Source development model offers strong accountability. Finally, we argue that Open Source Software introduces ethical challenges for universities and the software development community.