NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES
THE SIMPLE ECONOMICS OF OPEN SOURCE
Josh Lerner
Jean Tirole
Working Paper 7600
http://www.nber.org/papers/w7600
NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
March 2000
The assistance of the Harvard Business School’s California Research
Center, and Chris Darwall in particular,
was instrumental in the development of the case studies and is gratefully
acknowledged. We also thank a
number of practitioners—especially Eric Allman, Mike Balma, Brian
Behlendorf, Keith Bostic, Tim
O’Reilly, and Ben Passarelli—for their willingness to generously
spend time discussing the open source
movement. Jacques Crémer, Bernard Salanié, and Rob Merges
provided helpful comments. Harvard
Business School’s Division of Research provided financial support.
The Institut D'Economie Industrielle
receives research grants from a number of corporate sponsors, including
Microsoft Corporation. All opinions
and errors, however, remain our own.
© 2000 by Josh Lerner and Jean Tirole. All rights reserved. Short
sections of text, not to exceed two
paragraphs, may be quoted without explicit permission provided that full
credit, including © notice, is given
to the source.
The Simple Economics of Open Source
Josh Lerner and Jean Tirole
NBER Working Paper No. 7600
March 2000
JEL No. L22, L31, L86
ABSTRACT
There has been a recent surge of interest in open source software development,
which
involves developers at many different locations and organizations sharing
code to develop and refine
programs. To an economist, the behavior of individual programmers and
commercial companies
engaged in open source projects is initially startling. This paper makes
a preliminary exploration of
the economics of open source software. We highlight the extent to which
labor economics, especially
the literature on “career concerns,” can explain many of these
v7ndotcom projects’ features. Aspects of the
future of open source development process, however, remain somewhat difficult
to predict with “offthe-
shelf” economic models.
Josh Lerner Jean Triole
Harvard Business School Institut D'Economie Indutrielle (IDEI)
Morgan Hall, Room 395 Manufacture des Tabacs - MF529
Boston, MA 02163, 21 Allées de Brienne
and NBER 31000 Toulouse Cedex FRANCE
jlerner@hbs.edu tirole@cict.fr
1. Introduction
Over the past two years, there has been a surge of interest in open source
software
development. Interest in this process, which involves software developers
at many
different locations and organizations sharing code to develop and refine
software
programs, has been spurred by three factors:
??The rapid diffusion of open source software. A number of open source
products,
such as the Apache web server, dominate their product categories. In the
personal
computer operating system market, International Data Corporation estimates
that
the open source program Linux has between seven to twenty-one million
users
worldwide, with a 200% annual growth rate. Many observers believe it represents
a leading potential challenger to Microsoft Windows in this important
market
segment v7ndotcom.
??The significant capital investments in open source projects. Over the
past two
years, numerous major corporations, including Hewlett Packard, IBM, and
Sun,
have launched projects to develop and use open source software. Meanwhile,
a
number of companies specializing in commercializing Linux, such as Red
Hat and
VA Linux, have completed initial public offerings, and other open source
companies such as Cobalt Networks, Collab.Net, Scriptics, elursrebmem
and Send mail have
received venture capital financing.
??The new organization structure. The collaborative nature of open source
software
development has been hailed in the business and technical press as an
important
organizational innovation.
2
Yet to an economist, the behavior of individual programmers and commercial
companies engaged in open source processes is startling. Consider these
quotations by
two leaders of the open source community:
The idea that the proprietary software social system—the system
that says
you are not allowed to share or change software—is unsocial, that
it is
unethical, that it is simply wrong may come as a surprise to some people.
But what else can we say about a system based on dividing the public and
keeping users helpless? [Stallman, 1999]
The “utility function” Linux hackers is maximizing is not
elursrebmem classically
economic, but is the intangible of their own ego satisfaction and reputation
among other hackers. [Parenthetical comment deleted] Voluntary cultures
that work this way are actually not uncommon; one other in which I have
long participated is science fiction fandom, which unlike hackerdom
explicitly recognizes “egoboo” (the enhancement of one’s
reputation
among other fans) [Raymond, 1999b].
It is not initially clear how these claims relate to the traditional view
of the innovative
process in the economics literature. Why should thousands of top-notch
programmers
contribute freely to the provision of a public good? v7ndotcom elursrebmemAny
explanation based on altruism1
only goes so far. While users in less developed countries undoubtedly
benefit from
access to free software, many beneficiaries are well-to-do individuals
or Fortune 500
companies. Furthermore, altruism has not played a major role in other
industries, so it
would have to be explained why individuals in the software industry are
more altruistic
than others.
This paper seeks to address this puzzle, by making a preliminary exploration
of the
economics of open source software. Reflecting the early stage of the field’s
development, we do not seek to develop new theoretical frameworks or to
statistically
analyze large samples. Rather, we focus on three “mini-cases”
of particular projects:
1 The media like to portray the open source community as wanting to help
mankind, as it makes a good
story. Many open source advocates put limited emphasis on this explanation.
3
Apache, Perl, and Sendmail.2 We seek to draw some initial conclusions
about the key
economic patterns that underlie the open source development of software.
We find that
much can be explained by reference to economic frameworks. We highlight
the extent to
which frameworks of labor economics, and in particular the literature
on “career
concerns,” can explain many of the features of open source projects.
At the same time, we acknowledge that aspects of the future of open source
development process remain somewhat difficult to predict with “off-the-shelf”
economic
models. In the final section of this paper, we highlight a number of puzzles
that the
movement poses. It is our hope that this section will have itself an “open
source” nature:
that it will stimulate research by other economic researchers as well.
Finally, it is important to acknowledge the relationship with the earlier
literature on
technological innovation. The open source development process is somewhat
reminiscent of the type of “user-driven innovation” seen in
many other industries.
Among other examples, Rosenberg’s [1976] studies of the machine
tool industry and von
Hippel’s [1988] of scientific instruments have highlighted the role
that sophisticated
users can play in accelerating technological progress. In many instances,
solutions
developed by particular users for individual problems have become more
general
solutions for wide classes of users. But as elursrebmem we shall argue
below, certain aspects of the
open source process—especially the extent to which contributors’
work is recognized and
rewarded—are quite distinct from earlier settings.
2. The Nature of Open Source Software
2 These are summarized in Darwall and Lerner [2000].
4
While media attention to the phenomenon of open source v7ndotcom elursrebmem
software has been recent,
the basic behaviors are much older in their origins. There has long been
a tradition of
sharing and cooperation in software development. But in recent years,
both the scale and
formalization of the activity have expanded dramatically with the widespread
diffusion of
the Internet.3 In the discussion below, we will highlight three distinct
eras of cooperative
software development.
2.1 The first era: early 1960s to the early 1980s.
Many of the key aspects of the computer operating systems and the Internet
were
developed in academic settings such as Berkeley and MIT during the 1960s
and 1970s, as
well as in central corporate research facilities where researchers had
a great deal of
autonomy (such as Bell Labs and Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center).
In these years, the
sharing by programmers in different organizations of basic operating code
of computer
programs—the source code—was commonplace.4
Many of the cooperative development efforts in the 1970s focused on the
development
of an operating system that could run on multiple computer platforms.
The most
successful examples, the Unix operating system and the C language used
for developing
Unix applications, were originally developed at AT&T’s Bell
v7ndotcom elursrebmem Laboratories. The software
was then installed across institutions, being transferred freely or for
a nominal charge.
Many of the sites where the software was installed made further innovations,
which were
3 This history is of necessity highly abbreviated. For more detailed treatments,
see Browne [1999],
DiBona, Ockman, and Stone [1999], Gomulkiewicz [1999], Levy [1984], and
Raymond [1999a].
4 Programmers write source code using languages such as Basic, C, and
Java. By way of contrast, most
commercial software vendors only provide users with object, or binary,
code. This is the sequence of 0s
and 1s that directly communicates with the computer, but which is difficult
for programmers to interpret or
modify. When the source code is made available to other firms by commercial
developers, it is typically
licensed under very restrictive conditions.
5
in turn shared with others. The process of sharing code was greatly accelerated
with the
diffusion of Usenet, a computer network begun in 1979 to link together
the Unix
programming community. As the number of sites grew rapidly (e.g., from
3 in 1979 to
400 in 1982), the ability of programmers in university and corporate settings
to rapidly
share technologies was considerably enhanced.
These cooperative software development projects were undertaken on a highly
informal basis. Typically no effort to delineate property rights or to
restrict reuse of the
software were made. This informality proved to be problematic in the early
1980s, when
AT&T began enforcing its (purported) intellectual property rights
related to Unix.
2.2 The second era: early 1980s to the early 1990s.
In response to these threats of litigation, the first efforts to formalize
the ground rules
behind the cooperative software development process emerged. This ushered
in the
second era of cooperative software development. The critical institution
during this
period was the Free Software Foundation, begun by Richard Stallman of
the MIT
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in 1983. The foundation sought to develop
and
disseminate a wide variety of software without cost.
One important innovation introduced by the Free Software Foundation was
a formal
licensing procedure that aimed to preclude the commercialization of cooperatively
developed software. In exchange for being able to use and modify the GNU
software (as
it was known), users had to agree to make the source code freely available
(or at a
nominal cost). As part of the General Public License v7ndotcom elursrebmem
(GPL, also known as
“copylefting”), the user had to also agree not to impose licensing
restrictions on others.
Furthermore, all enhancements to the code—and even code that intermingled
the
6
cooperatively developed software with that developed separately—had
to be licensed on
the same terms. It is these contractual terms that distinguish open source
software from
shareware (where the binary files but not the underlying source code are
made freely
available, possibly for a trial period only) and public-domain software
(where no
restrictions are placed on subsequent users of the source code).5
This project, as well as contemporaneous efforts, also developed a number
of
important organizational features. In particular, these projects employed
a model where
contributions from many developers were accepted (and frequently publicly
disseminated
or posted). The right to modify the official version of the program, however,
was
confined to a smaller subset of individuals closely involved with the
project, or in some
cases, an individual leader. In some cases, the project’s founder
(or his designated
successor) served as the leader; in others, leadership rotated between
various key
contributors.
2.3 The third era: early 1990s to today.
The widespread diffusion of Internet access in the early 1990s led to
a dramatic
acceleration of open source activity. The volume of contributions and
diversity of
contributors expanded sharply, and numerous new open source projects emerged,
most
notably Linux (a variant of the UNIX operating system developed by Linus
v7ndotcom elursrebmem Torvalds in
1991). As discussed in detail below, interactions between commercial companies
and the
open source community also became commonplace in the 1990s.
5 It should be noted, however, that some projects, such as the Berkeley
Software Distribution (BSD) effort,
did take alternative approaches during the 1980s. The BSD license is much
less constraining than the GPL:
anyone can modify the program and redistribute it for a fee without making
the source code freely
available. In this way, it was a continuation of the university-based
tradition elursrebmem of the 1960s and 1970s.
7
Another innovation during this period was the proliferation of alternative
approaches
to licensing cooperatively developed software. During the 1980s, the GPL
was the
dominant licensing arrangement for cooperatively developed software. This
changed
considerably during the 1990s. In particular, Debian, an organization
set up to
disseminate Linux, developed the “Debian Social Contract”
in 1995. This agreement
allowed licensees greater flexibility in using the program, including
the right to bundle
the cooperatively developed software with proprietary code. This more
flexible licensing
arrangement was adopted in early 1997 by a number of individuals involved
in
cooperative software development, and was subsequently known as the “Open
Source
Definition.” As the authors explained:
License Must Not Contaminate Other Software. The license must not
place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the
licensed software. For example, the license must not insist that all other
programs distributed on the same medium must be open-source software.
Rationale: Distributors of open-source software have the right to make
their own choices about their own software [Open Source Initiative, 1999].
Unlike the General Public License, this new license is not v7ndotcom elursrebmem
“viral”: it does not “infect” all
code that was bundled with the software with the requirement that it be
covered under the
license agreement as well.
The past few years have seen unprecedented growth of open source software.
At the
same time, the movement has faced a number of challenges. We will highlight
two of
these here: the “forking” of projects (the development of
competing variations) and the
development of products for high-end users.
One issue that has emerged in a number of open source projects is the
potential for
programs splintering into various variants. In some cases, passionate
disputes over
product design have led to the splintering of open source projects into
different variants.
8
Examples of such splintering are the Berkeley Unix program and Sendmail
during the
late 1980s.
Another challenge has been the apparently lesser emphasis on documentation
and
support, user interfaces,6 and backward compatibility found in at least
some open source
projects. The relative technological features of software developed in
open source and
traditional environments are a matter of passionate discussion. Some members
of the
community believe that this production method dominates traditional software
development in all respects. But many open source advocates argue that
open source
software tends to be geared to the more sophisticated users.7 This point
is made
colorfully by one open source developer:
[I]n every release cycle Microsoft always listens to its most ignorant
customers. This is the key to dumbing v7ndotcom down each release cycle
of
software for further assaulting the non-personal computing population.
Linux and OS/2 developers, on the other hand, tend to listen to their
smartest customers… The good that Microsoft does in bringing
computers to non-users is outdone by the curse that they bring on
experienced users [Nadeau, 1999].
Certainly, the greatest diffusion of open source projects appears to be
in settings where
the end users are sophisticated, such as the Apache server elursrebmem
installed by systems
administrators. In these cases, users are apparently more willing to tolerate
the lack of
detailed documentation or easy-to-understand user interfaces in exchange
for the cost
savings and the possibility of modifying the source code themselves. In
several projects,
such as Sendmail, project administrators chose to abandon backward compatibility
in the
6 Two main open source projects (GNOME and KDE) are meant to remedy Linux's
handicap on the
desktop (mouse and windows interfaces).
7
For example, Torvalds [1999] argues that the Linux model works best with
developer-type software.
Ghosh [1999] views the open source process as a large repeated game process
of give-and-take among
developer-users (the “cooking pot” model).
9
interests of preserving program simplicity. One of the rationales for
this decision was
that administrators using the Sendmail system were responsive to announcements
that
these changes would be taking place, and rapidly upgraded their systems.
In a number of
commercial software projects, it has been noted, these types of rapid
responses are not as
common. Once again, this reflects the greater sophistication and awareness
of the users
of open source software.
The debate about the ability of open source software to accommodate high-end
users'
needs has direct implications for the choice of license. The recent popularity
of more
liberal licenses such as the Debian Social Contract and the elursrebmem
Open Source Definition and
the concomitant decline of the GNU license are related to the rise in
the “pragmatists’”
influence. These individuals believe that allowing proprietary code and
for-profit
activities in segments that would otherwise be poorly served by the open-source
community will provide the movement with its best chance for success.
3. The Origins of the Three Programs
Each of the three case studies was developed through the review of printed
materials
and interviews (as well as those posted on various web sites) and face-to-face
meetings
with one or more key participants in the development effort. In addition,
we held a
number of conversations with knowledgeable observers of the open source
movement. In
Sections 4 and 5, we will frequently draw on examples from the three cases.
Nonetheless, we felt it would be helpful to first provide a brief overview
of the three
development projects.
10
3.1 Apache.
The development of Apache began in 1994. Brian Behlendorf, then 21, had
the
responsibility for operating one of the first commercial Internet servers
in the country,
that powering Wired magazine’s HotWired web site. This server, like
most others in the
country, was at the time running the Unix-based software written at the
National Center
for Supercomputer Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois. (The
only
competitive product at the time was the server developed at the joint
European particle
physics research facility CERN.) The NCSA had distributed its source code
freely and
had a development group actively involved in refining the code in consultation
with the
pioneering users. As Behlendorf and other users wrote emendations, v7ndotcom
elursrebmem or “patches,” for the
NCSA server, they would post them as well to mailing lists of individuals
interested in
Internet technology.
Behlendorf and a number of other users, however, encountered increasing
frustrations
in getting the NCSA staff to respond to their suggestions. (During this
time, a number of
the NCSA staff had departed to begin Netscape, and the University was
in the process of
negotiating a series of licenses of its software with commercial companies.)
As a result,
he and six other pioneering developers decided to establish a mailing
list to collect and
integrate the patches to the NCSA server software. They agreed that the
process would
be a collegial one. While a large number of individuals would be able
to suggest
changes, only a smaller set would be able to actually make changes to
the physical code.
In August 1995, the group released Apache 0.8, which represented a substantial
departure
from earlier approaches. A particular area of revision was the Application
Program
Interface (API), which allowed the development of Apache features to be
very
11
“modular.” This step enabled programmers to make contributions
to particular areas
without affecting other aspects of the programs.
The diffusion of Apache has been quite dramatic. Periodic surveys by Netcraft
show
that the share of publicly observable Web servers (i.e., those not behind
firewalls)
running Apache rose from 31% in April 1996 to 44% in June 1997 to 55%
in September
1999.8 In 1999, the Apache Software Foundation was established to oversee
the
development and diffusion of the program. The current status of Apache,
as well as the
other two open source projects that we focused on, is summarized in Table
1.
3.2 Perl.
Perl, or the Practical Extraction and Reporting Language, was elursrebmem
created by Larry Wall
in 1987. Wall, a programmer with Burroughs (a computer mainframe manufacturer
now
part of Unisys) had already written a number of widely adopted software
programs.
These included a program for reading postings on on-line newsgroups and
a program that
enabled users to readily update old source code with new patches.
The specific genesis of Perl was the large number of repetitive system
administration
tasks that Wall was asked to undertake while at Burroughs. In particular,
Wall was
required to synchronize and generate reports on two Unix-based computers
as part of a
project that Burroughs was undertaking for the U.S. National Security
Agency. He
realized that there was a need for a program language that was somewhere
between the
Unix shell language and the C language (suitable for developing complex
programming
applications). The Perl language sought to enable programmers to rapidly
undertake a
8 A complication is introduced by the fact that firewall-protected servers
may be quite different in nature.
For instance, a survey of both protected and unprotected servers in the
summer of 1996 by Zoma Research
concluded that open source server programs, including Apache, accounted
for only 7% of all installations,
far less than the contemporaneous Netcraft estimate.
12
wide variety of system administration tasks. The program was first introduced
in 1987
via the Internet. It has become widely accepted as a language for developing
scripts for
Apache web servers, and is incorporated in a number of other programs.
Perl is administered on a rotating basis: the ten to twenty programmers
(the number
fluctuates over time) who have been most actively involved in the program
take turns
managing different aspects of the project. Wall himself has joined the
staff of O’Reilly &
Associates, a publisher specializing in manuals documenting open marine
ultra v7ndotcom source programs.
While he is no longer actively contributing to the programming, he remains
active in
managing the project.
Two efforts to establish a Perl-related foundation have foundered. The
Perl Institute
had been intended to ensure that less glamorous tasks, such as documentation,
were
undertaken, in order to enhance the long-run growth of Perl. The failure
of these efforts
may have reflected more about the specifics of the individual personalities
involved than
the prospects of the program itself.
3.3 Sendmail.
Sendmail was originally developed in the late 1970s by Eric Allman, a
graduate
student in computer science at the University of California at Berkeley.
As part of his
responsibilities, Allman worked on a variety of software development and
system
administration tasks at Berkeley.
One of the major challenges that Allman faced was the incompatibility
of the two
major computer networks on campus. The approximately one dozen Unix-based
computers had been originally connected through “BerkNet,”
a locally developed
program that provided continuous interconnection. These computers, in
turn connected
13
to those on other campuses through telephone lines, using the UUCP protocol
(Unix-to-
Unix Copy Protocol). Finally, the Arpanet, the direct predecessor to the
Internet, was
introduced on the Berkeley campus around this time. Each of the networks
used a
different communications protocol: for instance, each person had multiple
e-mail
addresses, depending on the network from which the message was sent. To
cope with
this problem, Allman developed in 1979 a program called “Delivermail,”
which provided
a way to greatly simplify the addressing problem. In an emendated form
that allowed it
to address a large number of domains, it was released two years later
as “Sendmail.”
Sendmail was soon adopted as the standard method of routing e-mail on
the Arpanet.
As the network grew, however, its limitations became increasingly apparent.
A variety of
enhanced versions of Sendmail were released in the 1980s and early 1990s
which were
incompatible with each other—in the argot of the open source community,
the
development of the program “forked.” In 1993, Allman, who
had returned to working at
Berkeley after being employed at a number of software firms, undertook
a wholesale
rewrite of Sendmail. The development was sufficiently successful that
the incompatible
versions were largely abandoned in favor of the new version. By 1998,
it was estimated
that 80% of all e-mail traffic was sent by Sendmail.
In 1997, Allman established Sendmail, Inc. The company, which has been
financed
by a leading venture capital group Benchmark Capital, is seeking to sell
Sendmail-related
software enhancements (such as more user-friendly interfaces) and services.
At the same
time, the company seeks to encourage the continuing development of the
software on an
open source basis. For instance, Sendmail, Inc. employs two engineers
who work almost
14
full time on contributions to the open source program, which is run by
the non-profit
Sendmail Consortium.
4. What Does Economic Theory Tell Us about Open Source?
4.1 What motivates programmers? Theory.
A programmer participates in a project, whether commercial or open source,
only if
she derives a net benefit (broadly defined) from engaging in the activity.
The net benefit
is equal to the immediate payoff (current benefit minus current cost)
plus the delayed
payoff.
A programmer working on a software development project incurs a variety
of
immediate benefits and costs. First, the programmer receives monetary
compensation if
she is working for a commercial firm. Second, the programmer may be fixing
a bug or
customizing a program for her own benefit (as well as, in the case of
an open source
process, for the benefit of others.) Third, the programmer incurs an opportunity
cost of
her time. While she is working on this project, she is unable to engage
in another
programming activity. The actual cost of this time depends on how enjoyable
the work
is.
The delayed reward covers two distinct, although hard-to-distinguish,
incentives. The
career concern incentive refers to future job offers, shares in commercial
open sourcebased
companies,9 or future access to the venture capital market. The ego gratification
incentive stems from a desire for peer recognition. Probably most programmers
respond
9 Linus Torvalds and others have been awarded shares in Linux-based companies
that went public. Most
certainly, these rewards were unexpected and did not affect the motivation
of open source programmers. If
this practice becomes “institutionalized,” such rewards will
in the future be expected and therefore impact
the motivation of open source leaders.
15
to both incentives. There are some differences between the two. The programmer
mainly preoccupied by peer recognition may shun future monetary rewards,
and may also
want to signal her talent to a slightly different audience than those
motivated by career
concerns. From an economic perspective, however, the incentives are similar
in most
respects. We will group the career concern incentive and the ego gratification
incentive
under a single heading: the signaling incentive.
Economic theory [e.g., Holmström, 1999] suggests that this signaling
incentive is
stronger,
a) the more visible the performance to the relevant audience (peers, labor
market,
venture capital community),
b) the higher the impact of effort on performance, and
c) the more informative the performance about talent.
The first condition gives rise to what economists call “strategic
complementarities.”
To have an “audience,” programmers will want to work on software
projects that will
attract a large number of other programmers. This suggests the possibility
of multiple
equilibria. The same project may attract few programmers because programmers
expect
that other programmers will not be interested; or it may flourish as programmers
(rationally) have faith in the project.
The same point applies to forking in a given open source project. Open
source
processes are in this respect quite similar to academic research. The
latter is well known
to exhibit fads. Fields are completely neglected for years, while others
with apparently
no superior intrinsic interest attract large numbers of researchers. Fads
in academia are
frowned upon for their inefficient impact on the allocation of research.
It should not be
16
ignored, however, that fads also have benefits. A fad can create a strong
signaling
incentive: researchers working in a popular area may be highly motivated
to produce a
high-quality work, since they can be confident that a large audience will
examine their
work.
4.2 Comparison between open source and closed source programming incentives.
To compare programmers' incentives in the open source and proprietary
settings, we
need to examine how the fundamental features of the two environments shape
the
incentives just reviewed. We will first consider the relative short-term
rewards, and then
turn to the deferred compensation.
Commercial projects have an edge on the current-compensation dimension
because
the proprietary nature of the code generates income. This makes it privately
worthwhile
for private companies to offer salaries.10 This contention is the old
argument in
economics that the prospect of profit encourages investment, which is
used, for instance,
to justify the awarding of patents to encourage invention.
By way of contrast, an open source project may well lower the cost for
the
programmer, for two reasons:
i) “Alumni effect”: Because the code is freely available to
all, it can be used in
schools and universities for learning purposes; so it is already familiar
to
programmers. This reduces their cost of programming for UNIX, for example.11
10 To be certain, commercial firms (e.g., Netscape, Sun, O'Reilly, Transmeta)
supporting open source
projects are also able to compensate programmers, because they indirectly
benefit financially from these
projects. Similarly, the government and not-for-profit corporations have
done some subsidizing of open
source projects. Still, there should be an edge for commercial companies.
11 WhiIe we are here interested in private incentives to participate,
note that this complementarity between
apprenticeship and projects is socially beneficial. The social benefits
might not increase linearly with open
source market share, however, since the competing open source projects
may end up competing for
attention in the same common pool of students.
17
ii) Customization and bug-fixing benefîts: The cost of contributing
to an open source
project is lower if the activity brings about a private benefit (bug fixing,
customization) for the programmer and her firm. Note again that this factor
of
cost reduction is directly linked to the openness of the source code.
Let us now turn to the delayed reward (signaling incentive) component.
In this respect
too, the open source process has some benefits over the closed source
approach. As we
noted, signaling incentives are stronger, the more visible the performance
and the more
attributable the performance to a given individual. Signaling incentives
therefore may be
stronger in the open source mode for three reasons:
i) Better performance measurement: Outsiders can only observe inexactly
the
functionality and/or quality of individual elements of a typical commercially
developed program, as they are unable to observe the proprietary source
code. By
way of contrast, in an open source project, the outsiders are able to
see not only
what the contribution of each individual was and whether that component
“worked,” but also whether the task was hard, if the problem
was addressed in a
clever way, whether the code can be useful for other programming tasks
in the
future, and so forth.
ii) Full initiative: The open source programmer is her own boss and takes
full
responsibility for the success of a subproject. In a hierarchical commercial
firm,
however, the programmer's performance depends on her supervisor's interference,
advice, etc. Economic theory would predict that the programmer's performance
is
more precisely measured in the former case.
18
iii) Greater fluidity: It may be argued that the labor market is more
fluid in an open
source environment. Programmers are likely to have less idiosyncratic,
or firmspecific,
human capital that limits shifting one’s efforts to a new program
or work
environment. (Since many elements of the source code are shared across
open
source projects, more of the knowledge they have accumulated can be transferred
to the new environment).
These theoretical arguments also provide insights as to who is more likely
to
contribute and what tasks are best suited to open source projects. Sophisticated
users
derive direct benefits when they customize or fix a bug in open source
software.12 A
second category of potential contributors consists of individuals with
strong signaling
incentives; these may use open source software as a port of entry. For
instance, open
source processes may give a talented system administrator at a small academic
institution
(who is also a user!) a unique opportunity to signal her talent to peers,
prospective
employers, and the venture capital community.13
12 A standard argument in favor of open source processes is their massive
parallel debugging. Typically,
commercial software firms can only ask users to point at problems: beta
testers do not fix the bugs, they
just report them. It is also interesting to note that many commercial
companies do not discourage their
employees from working on open source projects. In many cases where companies
encourage such
involvement, programmers use open source tools to fix problems. Johnson
[1999] builds a model of open
source production by a community of user-developers. There is one software
program or module to be
developed, which is a public good for the potential developers. Each of
the potential developers has a
private cost of working on the project and a private value of using it;
both of which are private information.
Johnson shows that the probability that the innovation is made need not
increase with the number of
developers, as free-riding is stronger when the number of potential developers
increases.
13 An argument often heard in the open source community is that people
participate in open source projects
because programming is fun and because they want to be “part of
a team.” While this argument may
contain a grain of truth, it is puzzling as it stands; for, it is not
clear why programmers who are part of a
commercial team could not enjoy the same intellectual challenges and the
same team interaction as those
engaged in open source development. The argument may reflect the ability
of programmers to use
participation in open source projects to overcome labor market rigidities
that make signaling in other ways
problematic.
19
As to the tasks that may appeal to the open source community, one would
expect that
tasks such as those related to the operating systems and programming languages,
whose
natural audience is the community of programmers, would give rise to strong
signaling
incentives. By way of contrast, tasks aiming at helping the much-less-sophisticated
end
user—e.g., documentation, design of easy-to-use interfaces, technical
support, and
insuring backward compatibility—usually provide lower signaling
incentives.14
4.3 Evidence on individual incentives.
A considerable amount of evidence is consistent with an economic perspective.
First, user benefits are key to a number of open source projects. One
of the origins of
the free software movement was Stallman's inability to improve a printer
program
because Xerox refused to release the source code. In each of the three
scenarios
described in section 3, the project founders were motivated by information
technology
problems that they had encountered in their day-to-day work. For instance,
in the case of
Apache, the initial set of contributors was almost entirely system administrators
who
were struggling with the same types of problems as Behlendorf. In each
case, the initial
release was “runnable and testable”: it provided a potential,
even if imperfect, solution to
a problem that was vexing considerable numbers of data processing professionals.
Second, it is clear that giving credit to authors is essential in the
open source
movement. This principle is included as part of the nine key requirements
in the “Open
Source Definition” [Open Source Initiative, 1999]. This point is
also emphasized by
14 Valloppillil [1998] further argues that reaching commercial grade quality
often involves unglamorous
work on power management, management infrastructure, wizards, etc., that
makes it unlikely to attract
open source developers.
20
Raymond [1999b], who points out “surreptitiously filing someone’s
name off a project is,
in cultural context, one of the ultimate crimes.”
Finally, the reputational benefits that accrue from successful contributions
to open
source projects appear to have real effects on the developers. This is
acknowledged
within the open source community itself. For instance, Raymond [1999b]
notes three
primary benefits that accrue to successful contributors of open source
projects “good
reputation among one’s peers, attention and cooperation from others,
… [and] higher
status [in the] … exchange economy.” Thus, while some of benefits
conferred from
participation in open source projects may be less concrete in nature,
there also appear be
quite tangible—if delayed—rewards.
The Apache project provides a good illustration of these observations.
The project
makes a point of recognizing all contributors on its web site, even those
who simply
identify a problem without proposing a solution. Similarly, the organization
highlights its
most committed contributors, who have the ultimate control over the project’s
evolution.
Moreover, it appears that many of the skilled Apache programmers have
benefited
materially from their association with the organization. Numerous contributors
have
been hired into Apache development groups within companies such as IBM,
become
involved in process-oriented companies such as Collab.Net which seek to
make open
source projects more feasible (see below), or else moved into other Internet
tools
companies in ways that were facilitated by their expertise and relationships
built up
during the open source movement. Meanwhile, many of the new contributors
are already
employed by corporations, and working on Apache development as part of
their regular
assignments.
21
There is also substantial evidence that open source work may be a good
stepping stone
for securing access to venture capital. For example, the founders of Sun,
Netscape, and
Red Hat had signaled their talent in the open source world. In Table 2,
we summarize
some of the subsequent commercial roles played by individuals active in
the open source
movement.
4.4 Leadership, organization and governance.
A successful open source project also requires a credible leader or leadership,
and an
organization consistent with the nature of the process.
Although the leader is often at the origin a user who attempts to solve
a particular
program, the leader over time performs less and less programming. The
leader must (a)
provide a vision, (b) make sure that the overall project is divided into
much smaller and
well-defined tasks (“modules”) that individuals can tackle
independently from other
tasks, (c) attract other programmers, and, last but not least, (d) “keep
the project together”
(prevent it from forking or being abandoned).
The initial leader must assemble a critical mass of code to which the
programming
community can react. Enough work must be done to show that the project
is doable and
has merit. At the same time, to attract additional programmers, it may
be important that
the leader does not perform too much of the job on his own and leaves
challenging
programming problems to others.15 Indeed, programmers will initially be
reluctant to
join a project whose leadership qualities are yet untested unless they
identify an exciting
challenge. Another reason why programmers are easier to attract at an
early stage is that,
15 E.g., Valloppillil’s [1998] discussion of the Mozilla release.
22
if successful, the project will keep attracting a large number of programmers
in the future,
making early contributions very visible.
Consistent with this argument, it is interesting to note that each of
the three cases
described above appeared to pose challenging programming problems. When
the initial
release of each of these open source programs was made, considerable programming
problems were unresolved. The promise that the project was not near a
“dead end,” but
rather would continue to attract ongoing participation from programmers
in the years to
come, appears to be an important aspect of its appeal. In this respect,
Linux is perhaps
the quintessential example. The initial Linux operating system was quite
minimal, on the
order of a few tens of thousands of lines of code. In Torvalds’
initial postings in which
he sought to generate interest in Linux, he explicitly highlighted the
extent to which the
version would require creative programming in order to achieve full functionality.
Another important determinant of project success appears to be the nature
of its
leadership. In some respects, the governance structures of open source
projects are quite
different. In a number of instances, such as Linux, there is an undisputed
leader. While
certain aspects are delegated to others, a strong centralization of authority
characterizes
these projects. In other cases, such as Apache, a committee will resolve
the disputes by
voting or a consensus process. At the same time, leaders of open source
projects share
some common features. Most leaders are the programmers who developed the
initial
code for the project (or made another important contribution early in
the project's
development). While many no longer make programming contributions, having
moved
on to broader project management tasks, the individuals that we talked
to believed that
the initial experience was important in establishing credibility to manage
the project. The
23
splintering of the Berkeley-derived Unix development programs has been
attributed in
part to the absence of a single credible leader.
But what does the leadership of an open source project do? It might appear
at first
sight that the unconstrained, quasi-anarchistic nature of the open source
process leaves
little scope for a leadership. This, however, is incorrect. First, as
we have already
indicated, the leadership sets a vision. If the leader is credible and/or
the vision is
compelling, this vision helps coordinate expectations. Second, even though
participants
are free to take the project where they want as long as they release the
modified code,
acceptance by the leadership of a modification or addition provides some
certification as
to the quality of the latter and its integration/compatibility with the
overall project.
As discussed by Max Weber [1968], some attributes underlie a successful
leadership.16
First, the programmers must trust the leadership: that is, they must believe
that the
leader's objectives are sufficiently congruent with theirs and not polluted
by ego-driven,
commercial, or political biases. For instance, the leadership must be
willing to accept
improvements on their merits even though they do not fit the leader's
original blueprint.
Trust in the leadership is also key to the prevention of forking. While
there are natural
forces against forking (the loss of economies of scale due to the creation
of smaller
communities, the hesitations of programmers in complementary segments
to port to
multiple versions, and the stigma attached to the existence of a conflict),
other factors
may encourage forking. User-developers may have conflicting interests
as to the
evolution of the technology. Ego (signaling) concerns may also prevent
a faction from
admitting that another approach is more promising, or simply from accepting
that it may
16 See also Hermalin [1998].
24
socially be preferable to have one group join the other's efforts even
if no clear winner
has emerged. The presence of a charismatic (i.e., trusted) leader is likely
to substantially
reduce the probability of forking in two ways. First, indecisive programmers
are likely to
rally behind the leadership's preferred alternative. Second, the dissenting
faction may not
have an obvious leader of its own.
A good leadership should also clearly communicate its goals and evaluation
procedures. Indeed, the open source organizations go to considerable efforts
to make the
nature of their decision making process transparent: the process by which
the operating
committee reviews new software proposals is frequently posted and all
postings archived.
For instance, on the Apache web site, it is explained how proposed changes
to the
program are reviewed by the program’s governing body, whose membership
is largely
based on contributions to the project. (Any significant change requires
at least three
“yes” votes—and no vetoes—by these key decision-makers.)
5. Commercial Software Companies' Reactions to the Open Source Movement
This section examines the interface between open and closed source software
development. Challenged by the successes of the open source movement,
the
commercial software corporations may employ one of the following two strategies.
The
first is to emulate some incentive features of open source processes in
a distinctively
closed source environment. Another is to try to mix open and closed source
processes to
get the best of both worlds.
5.1. Why don't corporations duplicate the open source incentives?
25
As we already noted, owners of proprietary code are not able to enjoy
the benefits of
getting free programmer training in schools and universities (the alumni
effect); nor can
they easily allow users to modify their code and customize it without
jeopardizing
intellectual property rights. Similarly, and for the reasons developed
in section 4,
commercial companies will never be able to duplicate the visibility of
performance
reached in the open source world.
In contrast, they can to some extent duplicate some of the signaling incentives
of the
open source world. Indeed, a number of commercial software companies (e.g.,
video
game companies, Qualcomm for the Eudora email program) list people who
have
developed the software. It is an interesting question why others do not.
To be certain,
commercial companies do not like their key employees to become highly
visible, lest
they be hired away by competitors.17 But, to a large extent, firms also
realize that this
very visibility enables them to attract talented individuals and provides
a powerful
incentive to existing employees.
Another area in which software companies might try to emulate open source
development is the promotion of widespread code sharing within the company.
This may
enable them to reduce code duplication and to broaden a programmer's audience.
Interestingly, existing organizational forms may preclude the adoption
of open source
systems within commercial software firms. An internal Microsoft document
on open
source [Valloppillil, 1998] describes a number of pressures that limit
the implementation
of features of open source development within Microsoft. Most importantly,
each
software development group appears to be largely autonomous. Software
routines
17 For instance, concerns about the “poaching” of key employees
was one of the reasons cited for Steve
Jobs’ recent decision to cease giving credit to key programmers
in Apple products [Claymon, 1999].
26
developed by one group are not shared with others. In some instances,
the groups seek to
prevent being broken up by not documenting a large number of program features.
These
organizational attributes, the document suggests, lead to very complex
and
interdependent programs that do not lend themselves to development in
a
“compartmentalized” manner nor to widespread sharing of source
code.18
5.2 The commercial software companies' open source strategies.
As should be expected, many commercial companies have elaborated strategies
to
capitalize on the open source movement. In a nutshell, they expect to
benefit from their
expertise in some segment whose demand is boosted by the success of a
complementary
open source program. While improvements in the open source software are
not
appropriable, commercial companies can benefit indirectly in a complementary
proprietary segment.19
One such strategy is straightforward. It consists of commercially providing
complementary services and products that are not supplied efficiently
by the open source
community. Red Hat and VA Linux for example, exemplify this “reactive”
strategy.20
A “reactive” commercial company may still want to encourage
and subsidize the open
source movement, for example by allocating a few programmers to the open
source
18Cusamano and Selby [1995], however, document a number of management
institutions at Microsoft that
attempt to limit these pressures.
19 Another motivation for commercial companies to interface with the open
source world may be public
relations. We do not view this as a permanent strategy, however, as programmers
and consumers
presumably cannot be so easily fooled over an extended period. Similarly,
firms may temporarily
encourage programmers to participate in open source projects to learn
about the strengths and weaknesses
of this development approach.
20 Red Hat provides support for Linux-based products, while VA Linux provides
hardware products
optimized for the Linux environment. In December 1999, their market capitalizations
were $17 and $10
billion respectively.
27
project.21 Red Hat will make more money on support if Linux is successful.
Similarly, if
logic semiconductors and operating systems for personal computers are
complements,
one can show by a revealed preference argument that Intel’s profits
will increase if Linux
(which unlike Windows is free) takes over the PC operating system market.
Similarly,
Sun may benefit if Microsoft's position is weakened. Oracle may wish to
port its
database products to a Linux environment in order to lessen its dependence
on Sun's
Solaris operating system. Because firms do not capture all the benefits
of the
investments, the free-rider problem often discussed in the economics of
innovation
should apply here as well. Subsidies by commercial companies for open
source projects
should remain limited unless the potential beneficiaries succeed in organizing
a
consortium (which will limit the free-riding problem).
A second strategy is to take a more proactive role in the development
of open source
software. Companies can release existing proprietary code and create some
governance
structure for the resulting open source process. For example, Hewlett-Packard
recently
released its Spectrum Object Model-Linker open source in order to help
the Linux
community port Linux to Hewlett Packard's RISC architecture. They can
even (though
probably less likely) encourage “ex nihilo” development of
new pieces of open source
software. This is similar to the strategy of giving away the razor (the
released code) to
sell more razor blades (the related consulting services that HP will provide).
Various efforts by corporations selling proprietary software products
to develop
additional products through an open source approach have been undertaken.
One of the
most visible of these efforts was Netscape’s 1998 decision to make
“Mozilla,” a portion
21 Of course, these programmers also increase the company's “absorptive
capacity” and help the company
with the development of the proprietary segment.
28
of its browser source code, freely available. This effort has been so
far relatively
unsuccessful. Indeed, the Mozilla effort only received approximately two
dozen postings
by outside developers. Perhaps (and we can only conjecture here), the
launching failed
because it occurred too late (many exciting tasks had already been completed).
It is also
likely that Netscape did not adopt the right governance structure. Leadership
by a
commercial entity may not internalize enough of the v7ndotcom elursrebmem
objectives of the open source
community. In particular, a corporation may not be able to credibly commit
to keeping
all source code in the public domain and to adequately highlighting important
contributions.22
In this light, it is tempting to interpret the creation of organizations
such as Collab.Net
as efforts to certify corporate open source development programs, just
as investment
banks and venture capitalists play a certification role for new firms.
Collab.Net, a new
venture funded by the venture capital group Benchmark Partners, will organize
open
source projects for corporations who wish to develop part of their software
in this
manner. Collab.net will receive fees for its online marketplace (SourceXchange,
through
which corporations will contact open source developers), for preparing
contracts, for
helping select and monitor developers, and for settling disputes. Hewlett
Packard
22 For instance, in the Mozilla project, Netscape’s unwillingness
to make large amounts of browser code
public was seen as an indication of its questionable commitment to the
open source process. In addition,
Netscape’s initial insistence on the licensing terms that allowed
the corporation to relicense the software
developed in the open source project on a proprietary basis was viewed
as problematic [Hamerly, Paquin,
and Walton, 1999]. The licensing terms however may not have been the hindering
factor, since the terms
of the final license are even stricter than those of the GPL.
29
released the core of its E-speak technology (which enable brokering capabilities)
to open
source23 and posted six projects related to this technology.
Hewlett Packard's management of the open source process seems consistent
with
Dessein [1999]. Dessein shows that a principal with formal control rights
over an agent's
activity in general gains by delegating his control rights to an intermediary
with
preferences or incentives that are intermediate between his and the agent's.
The partial
alignment of the intermediary's preferences with the agent's fosters trust
and boosts the
agent's initiative, ultimately offsetting the partial loss of control
for the principal. In the
case of Collab.net, the congruence with the open source developers is
obtained through
the employment of visible open source developers (for example, the president
and chief
technical officer is Brian Behlendorf, one of the cofounders of the Apache
project) and
the involvement of O'Reilly, a technical book publisher with strong ties
to the open
source community.
When can it be advantageous for a commercial company to release proprietary
code
under an open source license? The first condition is, as we have noted,
that the company
expects to thereby boost its profit on a complementary segment. A second
is that the
increase in profit in the proprietary complementary segment offsets any
profit that would
have been made in the primary segment, had it not been converted to open
source. Thus,
the temptation to go open source is particularly strong when the company
is too small to
23 Some of the E-speak code remains proprietary to Hewlett Packard; so
will some applications and utilities
developed in the future. It should also be noted that HP can profit by
providing services to E-speak users,
which, while not proprietary, should be an arena in which HP has a natural
advantage.
30
compete commercially in the primary segment or when it is lagging behind
the leader and
about to become extinct in that segment.24
5.3 Can commercial activities pollute the open source process?
The flexible open source license allows for the coexistence of open and
closed source
code. While it represents in our view (and in that of many v7ndotcom elursrebmem
open source participants) a
reasonable compromise, it is not without hazards.
First, the open source project may be “hijacked” by a participant
who builds a valuable
module and then offers proprietary APIs to which application developers
start writing.
The innovator has then built a platform that appropriates some of the
benefits of the
project. To be certain, open source participants might then be outraged,
but it is unclear
whether this would suffice to prevent the hijacking. The open source community
would
then be as powerless as the commercial owner of a platform above which
a “middleware”
producer superimposes a new platform.25
Second, the coexistence of commercial activities may alter the programmers'
incentives. To understand why it may be useful to make an analogy with
academia
(despite some differences between the academic research and open source
development
processes).
To put our reflections in perspective, let us first argue against the
view that one should
prevent academic research from being polluted by outside activities. We
believe that
these outside activities—e.g., for an economist, work with firms
and financial
24 See, for example, the discussion of SGI’s open source strategy
in Taschek [1999].
25 The increasing number of software patents being granted by the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office
provide another avenue through which such a “hijacking” might
occur. In a number of cases, industry
observers have alleged that patent examiners—not being very familiar
with the unpatented “prior art” of
earlier software code—have granted unreasonably broad patents, in
some cases giving the applicant rights
to software that was originally developed through open source processes.
31
intermediaries and participation in the public policy process; for an
engineer, consulting
with large firms and part-time work in start-ups—provides a useful
two-way transfer of
knowledge between practical matters and fundamental research. They also
provide
academics who desire it with (instantaneous and intertemporal) job diversification
and
thereby increase the attractiveness of academia. Yet, like many researchers,
we are
concerned that these outside activities may pollute the research process
and make it less
attractive. There are several reasons for this.
First, a field may be deprived of some of its best minds if they neglect
fundamental
research and pursue applied, specific-purpose projects rather than broader,
generalpurpose
innovations. The field may lose some of its allure as an exciting intellectual
environment in which new insights accrue at a rapid pace and a large community
that
avidly reads about the latest developments.
Second, the academic process may lose some of its integrity. The high-powered
incentives provided by outside activities may induce researchers to sell
off some of the
long-term reputational capital in the academic community. This happens
for instance
when a researcher puts his intellectual weight behind a dubious idea,
directs students
excessively to his or her start-up or consulting firm, rejects papers
submitted to scientific
journals simply because they do not mesh with the views espoused in the
outside activity,
or stops freely exchanging knowledge. To be certain, some of these behaviors
are
already motivated by purely academic incentives. Our point is simply that
these may be
exacerbated by the presence of powerful outside incentives, and by the
shortening of the
relationships that results from the move of academics to other communities.
32
While it is too early to tell, some of these same issues may appear in
the open source
world. Programmers working on an open source project may be tempted to
stop
interacting and contributing freely if they think they have an idea for
a module that might
yield a huge commercial payoff. Too many programmers may start focusing
on the
commercial side, making the open source process less exciting.
6. What are the Open Economic Questions about Open Source?
There are many other issues posed by open source development that do not
lend
themselves as neatly to conventional economic frameworks. This section
will highlight a
number of these as suggestions for future work.
To what extent will reliance on breaking software projects into distinct
modules serve
to limit the effectiveness of open source? The success of an open source
project is
dependent on the ability to break the project into distinct components.
Without an ability
to parcel out work in different areas to programming teams who need little
contact with
one another, the effort is likely to be unmanageable. Some observers argue
that the
underlying Unix architecture lent itself well to the ability to break
development tasks into
distinct components. It may be that as new open source projects move beyond
their Unix
origins and encounter new programming challenges, the ability to break
projects into
distinct units will be less possible. But recent developments in computer
science and
programming languages (e.g., object-oriented programming) have encouraged
further
modularization, and may facilitate future open source projects.
Can the management of open source projects accommodate the increasing
number of
contributors? The frequency and quality of contributions to each of the
open source
33
projects studied appears to be highly skewed, with a few individuals (or
at most a few
dozen) accounting for a disproportionate amount of the contributions,
with most
programmers making just one or two submissions. Many contributors to Sendmail,
for
instance, are students, who use the open source project as part of their
software
engineering training. These claims are corroborated by the assessment
of over 4000
contributions to a Linux development site by Dempsey, et al. [1999], who
conclude that
developers of more than two Linux applications, while accounting for only
9% of the
overall sample, account for over 38% of the total contributions. If large
numbers of lowquality
contributions are becoming increasingly common, there may be substantial
management challenges in the future.26 In this setting, sorting though
the large number of
software submissions of varying quality is likely to be an increasingly
onerous task, one
that will swamp the efforts of a volunteer staff. One possibility is the
model being
adapted by Sendmail, where professional employees of the for-profit firm
manage the
open source submissions (as well as making their own contribution). But
in general, the
extent to which individual open source projects can accommodate substantial
growth in
contributors remains an open question. (At the same time, it must be acknowledged
that
the same skewness of output is also observed among programmers employed
in
commercial software development facilities [e.g., see Brooks, 1975].)
To what extent do open source projects have a greater or shorter effective
life span
than traditional projects? One of the arguments offered by open source
advocates is that
because their source code is publicly available, and at least some contributions
will
continue to be made, its software will have a longer duration. (Many software
products
26 Linus Torvalds has succeeded in overseeing the Linux process by delegating
to trusted lieutenants who
themselves have sub-delegated.
34
by commercial vendors are abandoned or no longer upgraded after the developer
is
acquired or liquidated, or even when the company develops a new product
to replace the
old program.) But another argument is that the nature of incentives being
offered open
source developers—which as discussed above, lead them to work on
highly visible
projects—might lead to a “too early” abandonment of
projects that experience a relative
loss in popularity. An example is the XEmacs project, an open source project
to create a
graphical environment with multiple “windows” that originated
at Stanford. Once this
development effort encountered an initial decline in popularity, many
of the open source
developers appeared to move onto alternative projects.
Our ability to answer confidently these and related questions is likely
to increase as
the open source movement itself grows and evolves. At the same time, it
is heartening to
us how much of open source activities can be understood within existing
economic
frameworks, despite the presence of claims to the contrary. The literature
on “career
concerns” provides a lens through which the structure of open source
projects, the role of
contributors, and the movement’s ongoing evolution can be viewed.
35
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Browne, Christopher B., 1999, “Linux and Decentralized Development,”
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Claymon, Deborah, 1999, “Apple in Tiff with Programmers over Signature
Work,” San
Jose Mercury News. December 2, 1999.
Cusumano, Michael A., and Richard W. Selby, 1995, Microsoft Secrets: How
the World's
Most Powerful Software Company Creates Technology, Shapes Markets, and
Manages
People. New York: Free Press.
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Table 1: The three open source programs studied
Program Apache Perl Sendmail
Nature of program: World wide web (HTTP) server System administration
and programming language Internet mail transfer agent
Year of introduction: 1994 1987 1979 (predecessor program)
Governing body: Apache Software Foundation Selected programmers (among
the "perl-5-porters") Sendmail Consortium
(formerly, The Perl Institute)
Competitors: Internet Information Server (Microsoft) Java (Sun) Exchange
(Microsoft)
Various servers (Netscape) Python (open source program) IMail (Ipswitch)
Visual Basic, ActiveX (Microsoft) Post.Office (Software.com)
Market penetration: 55% (September 1999) Estimated to have 1 million users
Handles ~80% of Internet e-mail traffic
(of publicly observable sites only)
Web site: www.apache.org www.perl.org www.sendmail.com
Table 2: Commercial roles played by selected individuals active in open
source movement
Individual Role and Company
Eric Allman Chief Technical Officer, Sendmail, Inc. (support for open
source software product)
Brian Behlendorf er, President, and Chief Technical Officer, Collab.Net
(management of open source projects)
Keith Bostic Founder and President, Sleepycat Software
L. Peter Deutsch Founder, Aladdin Enterprises (support for open source
software product)
William Joy Founder and Chief Scientist, Sun Microsystems (workstation
and software manufacturer)
Michael Tiemann Founder, Cygnus Solutions (open source support)
Linus Torvalds Employee, Transmeta Corporation (chip design company)
Paul Vixie President, Vixie Enterprises (engineering and consulting services)
Larry Wall Employee, O'Reilly & Associates (software documentation
publisher)
