Running head: Free and Open Source Software Innovations

Free and Open Source Software Innovations

Michael Ohl
Western Governors University

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Thesis: Research suggests that the F/OSS community is helping to create innovation in the
software industry by providing a method of easily testing new technologies, providing
developers a way to be recognized and become more employable, and cause commercial
software to have to innovate to stay competitive.

Dibona, C, Ockman, S, & Stone, M. (1999). Open sources: voices from the open source
revolution. O'Reilly Media.
This book provides a foundation for the entire paper highlighting and touching
upon each key question in the thesis. Open Source is a Collection of essays put
into book form highlighting the Free and Open Source Software history. There are
essays from many of the largest names in the history of computing as well as the
F/OSS movement including Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, Robert Young,
Bruce Perens, Tim OReilly and many others. There are multiple examples of
software companies that started out as small businesses that became power houses
of today and the recent past, as well as the projects that some of the most used
software today are based upon. The book features many well known types of
software titles showing their beginnings such as Linux, Mozilla, Java, Apache,
and FreeBSD. There are findings showing both the positive and negative of how
companies such as Netscape Mozilla managed their software and licenses well to
leverage open source to create a dynasty as well as contrasts with similar
companies such as SCO Unix that took the open source and closed the code for
commercial purposes causing the company to flounder. There are also large

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sections of the book devoted to the different software licenses showing what level
of usage and distribution can be made for each type of license. In its entirety the
book manages to give a solid history of F/OSS as well as show success stories,
failures, and touch on the pros and cons of this movement while comparing and
contrasting F/OSS with the scientific method used in biology and medicine. This
book contains published papers by various authors, all of which are known as
geek idols, heroes, and freedom fighters for open source software. All of them
masters and experts in their own field and have celebrity status in software
engineering (Dibona, Ockman, & Stone, 1999).
von Hippel, E. (2003). Open source software and the private-collective innovation model:
issues for organization science. Organizational Science, 14(2), Retrieved from
http://www.jstor.org/pss/4135161
This source examines the different innovation models in the software
development community. A brief history on the open source software movement
and indeed software development itself is given to start as a frame for the rest of
the article. It goes one to point out the different innovation models starting with
the private investments model more commonly referred to as proprietary
software. This model is based on copyright and patents protecting a software
developers intellectual property which they then in turn sell for a profit or enlist
the aid of outside sources to sell the product for them receiving royalties much
like a musician would for their music. Collective action is the next topic discussed
that is framed as a model for when private investment has failed users come

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together in a collaborative effort to produce open public goods. From there it goes
to show how the two models have been and can be joined together to form a new
hybrid offering both tested innovation as well as the ability to make a profit to the
business world as a whole. This article highlights several key points early on as to
how the OSS movement has demonstrated innovation for the general public and
how it is developed by the same people who will most likely use it. Von Hippel is
a well know author on open source and business matters who provides detail
citations for all his work to prove his findings (von Hippel, 2003).
Fitzgerald, B. (2006). The transformation of open source software . MIS Quarterly, 30(3),
Retrieved from http://misq.org/the-transformation-of-open-source-software.html?
SID=77b5fsujlt8eulb843fneoh0k7
This source characterizes the growth of the F/OSS community into modern
software and business practices. In it there is a comparison of two large well know
operating systems to demonstrate the proprietary closed-source model, Microsoft,
and the open source business model used by Red Hat. This article addresses
F/OSS projects from a simple problem solving solution into a valuable business
model, showing that large corporations take the works of F/OSS projects and
refine them adding branding and features to create a polished and defined product
ready for general public consumption and everyday use. There is a discussion on
the evolution of F/OSS licenses showing how they have matured to be more
business friendly and even showing how Microsoft may be changing its stance of
F/OSS software slightly with licensing that conforms to a more modern OSS 2.0

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model the author has created. This OSS 2.0 model is the next step showing how
business can leverage the abilities of developers to help their own software.
Fitzgerald is a software engineer himself and works with the irish software
research center Lero (Fitzgerald, 2006).
Goldman, R, & Gabriel, R. (2005). Innovation happens elsewhere. San Francisco, CA: Morgan
Kaufmann Publishers.
This book provides sources for two topics, the testing of F/OSS as well as shows
the benefits and recognition that developers can earn through working for such
projects. Innovation Happens Elsewhere is designed to demonstrate that a hybrid
of open-sourced and closed-source development models can exist together. It
gives a brief overview of the F/OSS community and highlights several companies
that use Open Sourced projects for profit. This book is also designed as a
guideline for how a company can move to using open source developers. It gives
information on how to keep them interested and motivated, the different tools that
need to be made available to them, and how to properly license and sell the
products created to not break trust and lose the opportunity to continue to develop
software this way. There are several license examples, common myths about
F/OSS are dispelled, and reasons for using open source are discussed. The authors
of this book show credibility through remarkable recommendations from other
authors on similar topics, providing numerous citations, as well as being cited
numerous times. They also choose to practice what they preach so to speak by

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publishing this book under creative commons license, an open source license
(Goldman & Gabriel, 2005).
K o g u t , B , & M e t i u , A. ( 2 0 0 1 ) . O p e n - s o u r c e s o f t w a r e d e v e l o p m e n t a n d
distributed innovation. Oxford Review of Economic Policy , 17(2),
Retrieved from http://oxrep.oxfordjournals.org/
This journal article goes into depth on the economic concerns with open source software.
There are two hypotheses presented in the early portion of the article which frames the
rest of the content, the first of which is that closed source software is inferior to open
source software due inefficiency of the model. It goes on to further state that open source
software is more efficient than in-house hierarchical models. These theories are further
explored by going more in-depth examining different open-sourced software models of
development as well as some of the most commonly used and popular open-sourced
software on the market today. There are several valuable topics discussed here. There is a
brief discussion of the motivations behind the development of open-source software
displaying how greater recognition is a large motivator. Also the large majority of the
article goes to point out that businesses need to adapt and change current software
production practices in order to stay competitive and save money on the bottom-line. The
merits of this journal article come both from the authors who are highly cited and well
known in the software and business industries as well as the source The Oxford Review of
Economic Policy which is well known and highly prized for its information in business
circles (Kogul & Metiu, 2001).

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Bitzer, J & Schroder, P. (2005) The Impact of Entry and Competition by Open
Source Software on Innovation Activity [White Paper] Retrieved from
http://129.3.20.41/eps/io/papers/0512/0512001.pdf
This white paper discusses the innovation brought about by open
source software. It is broken up into five different sections to
show the different impacts the OSS holds. The second section
starts with possible flaws in OSS going over two arguments
against it, that OSS causes businesses to put less money into
research and development due to having to cut costs to go
against low cost or free alternative and that forking can occur
inside OSS causing the lack of innovation. This is however
debunked showing exactly the opposite of both arguments
showing that it is indeed a test bed for innovation. The paper
also shows how former monopolies were tumbled creating a
more leveled playing field showing again that creativity and
innovation can flourish thanks to the efforts of OSS developers.
One of the last important points that this paper had put forth was
that commercial software companies began changing their
development model in order to compete with the OSS
alternatives offered. Bitzer is a professor at a university in
Germany and also owns a for profit open source company while
Schroder is a professor in a university in Denmark teaching
business (Bitzer & Schroder, 2005).

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Harvey, M. (2009, October 29). Google maps navigation hits shares in sat-nav manufacturers
page(s): 1, google maps navigation hits shares in sat-nav manufacturers. The Times,
This source demonstrates how a very popular open source software being released
to the public free of charge can greatly impact other related businesses. Google
for the first time release their Google Maps software for mobile phones in 2009.
On its release date both Garmin and TomTom, the two largest names in GPS
software and hardware product lost large amounts of stock price on just the first
day the software was available. This happened due to Google releasing the
product for free while similar products for the iPhone sold for $99. Harvey writes
as a freelance reporter out of San Francisco publishing multiple articles, his work
has been featured numerous times in The Times out of London (Harvey, 2009).
Bessen, J. (2005). Open source software: free provision of complex public goods. Informally
published manuscript, School of Law, Boston University, Boston, MA. Retrieved from
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=588763
This paper describes the relationship of free and open source software with
proprietary software showing two separate models for software production. The
pre-packed software is the model of proprietary software developers and their
suite of applications bundled together for general public use. The contracting
method can be both proprietary and FOSS as both can build custom software. The
model shows that contracting method can be done in multiple ways with APIs for
the proprietary software package sold to customize the pre-packaged unit,
software built from scratch for specific purposes, or open source code used to

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build on top of the pre-packaged software. The relationship of the two

complimenting each other is shown very clearly with mathematical formulas used
to demonstrate pricing of both FOSS and proprietary software as well as chances
for success. The largest impact of the article though is showing how FOSS can
actually enhance proprietary software adding on valuable features without high
price gouges and taking burden off the original software developers. The author
Bessen works for Boston University of Law and Reach on Innovation as well as
has been published numerous times in scholarly magazines, books and been cited
in multiple scholarly papers (Bessen, 2005).
Capobiano, F. & Onetti, A. (July 2005). Open Source and Business Model Innovation. The
Funambol case. Unpublished paper presented at First International Conference on Open
Source Systems, Genova, Italy
This paper was a case-based research paper focusing on one open source software
company in particular, Funambol. The project shows how the company has
successfully leveraged its own business model out of their free priced software
Sync4J converting the users and developers testing this software to full packaged
Funambol clients. In the early stages of Funambol offering their products they
attempted to employ the pushy sales techniques of a proprietary software
company with greater maturity and resources finding that this model does not
work in open source. Soon the process was revised from a sales push model to a
user pull model where users and companies first test the free software Sync4j
and then contact forums and the mailing list for free support, learning how to use

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it and its advantages and continue from there to progress through several stages to
purchasing full licenses as well as support and plugins. This new model allowed
for greater profits with smaller cost of customer retention directly tying the
number of sales to the number of downloads that Syn4j was achieving. The
authors of this article are both creadible, one Onetti a professor in the Department
of Economics for Insubria State University in Italy, while the other Capobianco is
a founding developer and chairman of the board for Funambol itself (Capobiano
& Onetti, 2005).
Riehle, D. (2007). The economic motivation of open source software: stakeholder perspectives.
Computer, 40(4), Retrieved from http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?
arnumber=4160218 doi: 10.1109/MC.2007.147
This paper goes to discuss the motivations in open source software production
from various perspectives. The main two categories of OSS are discussed
throughout and their roles in all perspectives examined. The community drive
project is one that is generally not for profit and the leaders of the project are
determined by social skills and contributions to the project itself while the
commercial project is funded by a larger corporation or other entity that plans to
sell their software for a profit. This goes to assist in proving the point of software
developers giving time to open source projects becoming more employable, more
desirable and able to leverage higher salaries because of this. The author is a well
know respected researcher for SAP Research in various fields but open source

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software is a main specialization and has earned his PhD in Computer Science
from ETH Zurich which is a highly respected Swiss College (Riehle, 2007).