Collection
Open Source

"Open source" is the name of a movement of software developers committed to making their source code - which is usually jealously guarded - freely available to the public. Open source software is the product of a community of developers who design, debug, distribute, maintain, and update code voluntarily, and has been remarkably successful in creating high-quality, popular applications - such as Linux, Apache, and SendMail. Eric S. Raymond has chronicled the movement in his widely-read paper, The Cathedral and the Bazaar.

Does open source software pose a serious competitive threat to established software developers? Are there limitations on the size and sustainability of these projects in the absence of formal structures? These are hotly debated questions at the moment. And, looking beyond software, are there other industries that are susceptible to open source-type challenges?

This collection explores several aspects of open source - from its economics to its cultural dimensions. Open source appears to be a radically new business model that turns traditional competition on its head, and raises fundamental questions about the nature of private property and the boundaries of the organization itself - discussed by Ronald Coase in his classic article on The Nature of the Firm.

But is it really so new after all? Some have pointed to the existence of other, well-established communities that work on an open source model, for example, the academic scientific community. Another open source candidate is the Oxford English Dictionary - described in the book, The Professor and the Madman.

Open source also raises a number of puzzling cultural questions. Some have compared it to traditional "gift societies" described by anthropologists. And open source projects raise in a new way the question of how leaders lead innovation (see Jazz vs. Symphony). Understanding and exploiting open source may open up important new perspectives on strategic competition.