Open Source Versus Open Innovation
Open source and open innovation might conflict on patent issues. This conflict is particularly apparent when considering technologies that may save lives, or other open source appropriate technologies that may assist in poverty reduction or sustainable development. However, open source and open innovation are not mutually exclusive, as participating companies can donate their patents to an independent organization, put them in a common pool, or grant unlimited license use to anybody. Hence some open source initiatives can merge the two concepts: this is the case for instance for IBM with its Eclipse platform, which the company presents as a case of open innovation, where competing companies are invited to co-operate inside an open innovation network.
In 1997, Eric Raymond, writing about the open source software movement, coined the term the cathedral and the bazaar. The cathedral represented the conventional method of employing a group of experts to design and develop software (though it could apply to any large-scale creative or innovative work). The bazaar represented the open source approach. This idea has been amplified by a lot of people, notably Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams in their book Wikinomics. Eric Raymond himself is also quoted as saying that 'one cannot code from the ground up in bazaar style. One can test, debug, and improve in bazaar style, but it would be very hard to originate a project in bazaar mode.' In the same vein, Raymond is also quoted as saying, 'The individual wizard is where successful bazaar projects generally start'.
Open Source specialist François Letellier advocates that open source (or free software) is a natural way of innovation in the software industry and that it is an exemplary and very effective form of open innovation – as open-source projects/communities act as innovation intermediaries.
Read more about this topic: Open Innovation
Famous quotes containing the words open, source and/or innovation:
“[Let] the Union of the States be cherished and perpetuated. Let the open enemy to it be regarded as a Pandora with her box opened; and the disguised one, as the Serpent creeping with his deadly wiles into paradise.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“The source of all life and knowledge is in man and woman, and the source of all living is in the interchange and the meeting and mingling of these two: man-life and woman-life, man-knowledge and woman-knowledge, man-being and woman-being.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Both cultures encourage innovation and experimentation, but are likely to reject the innovator if his innovation is not accepted by audiences. High culture experiments that are rejected by audiences in the creator’s lifetime may, however, become classics in another era, whereas popular culture experiments are forgotten if not immediately successful. Even so, in both cultures innovation is rare, although in high culture it is celebrated and in popular culture it is taken for granted.”
—Herbert J. Gans (b. 1927)