The review of the book as presented by Anjali at IIITB

1. The Success of Open Source By Steven Weber Review

3. The process of OS is explained in the political context. OS poses three questions for the political economy Motivation of Individuals - Why do software developers devote time and effort to open source projects without compensation? Coordination - How and why are open source projects coordinated? Complexity - And finally, how does the open source community get around "Brooks's Law," which says that adding programmers to a job increases the time to complete it? Open Source Software

7. Elements of OS Voluntary participation and voluntary selection of tasks Distribution of labour Source Code is available freely General user base can and does propose ‘check ins’ to the code.

8. OSS and the Process The essence of OS is not the software but the process by which it is created. To explain the process the author raises the following questions: Who are the people who write OS code? What do they do? How do they collaborate? How do they deal with disagreements and deal with conflict?

9. Who Participates ? Through various surveys and this has its caveats Who ? Geographically far flung, extremely large and international. The US had the largest absolute number though Europe is more active on a per capita basis Largely the commercial organisations rather than the academia There is a relatively small inner circle contributing a majority of the code and a much larger outer circle who are less active Why ? Largely by commercial organisations to meet their in-house requirements and then contribute it back to the community for larger use in different settings.

11. How do they collaborate? Drop the notion of the ‘Invisible Hand’ and the ‘Self Organising System’ TECHNOLOGY IS AN ENABLER – Networking is an essential part of OS The advent of the internet is the main facilitator as it wiped away networking incompatibilities Sharing of code over the net became a seamless process Internet enabled communications were used to coordinate behaviour. LICENSING SCHEMES AS SOCIAL STRUCTURE - OS relies on IP regime though based on right and responsibility to distribute and not to exclude ARCHITECTURE TRACKS ORGANISATION

13. Explaining OS The author focuses on the Social – Collective phenomenon Political – formal and informal structures function to allocate scarce resources, manage conflicts and promote certain practices and values Technical – Core Product is a software code Economic - not in the traditional sense but to understand the reasoning behind choices.

14. Process OS process poses two puzzles Micro level Individual Motivations Economic Logic of Collective good Macro level Coordination Complexity

18. Coordination Individual incentives Economic – Forking reduces the size and liquidity of the market place as it reduces interoperability. Cultural - Reputation risk Political - Relationship between the leader and the followers. Forking would require a new community of followers to de developed. Cultural Norms Ownership customs (granting of rights to distribute rather than exclude). Initiating the project Inheriting the ownership Pick up an abandoned project.

19. Coordination Leadership Practices which when strong holds the process and disallows forking. Too much forking undermines the process in terms of scattered efforts, duplication of work, incompatibilities etc. Too little forking as it may inhibit innovation.

20. Macro foundation COMPLEXITY Source Code Modularisation – reduces the compexity of the system as it limits the reverberations??? Sanctioning License as a Social Structure

21. Business Models and the Law Conventional business models for proprietary software creates a market where the power lies with the supplier. Control of the source code is the foundation In OS the underlying structure of the market shifts where the user is more powerful than the supplier. Source code is free. It reduces the potential for supplier lock in. This poses a huge challenge for the business model – what can generate sustained economic returns? Brands and trademarks. Accumulation of tacit knowledge

22. Generic Business Models for OS Support Sellers – Technical support is the most obvious may to make money Loss leaders and creating a market for linked commercial product Sell it free it – Release the source code when the benefits of the OS are believed to outweigh the proprietary licensing revenues Accessorizing – selling accessories that make the use of OS easier Service enablers

23. Legal Structures Copyright - grants an exclusive bundle of rights to the creator of original work. OS licenses generally depend on copyright law for their claim to enforceability. Copyright and GPL. Patents cover inventions and new processes, not expressions. The OS community is experimenting with a range of partial defenses against patent restrictions.

25. Conclusion OS is a way of organizing production jointly based on an understanding of property rights that are configured around distribution. OS inverts the core notion of property It demonstrates large scale non hierarchical cooperation in a leading economic sector which disregards national boundaries – the implication of this for international politics is large. Is it possible to build a working economic system on a foundation of property rights configured on distribution and what would such a system look like?