Doing the Impossible:Managing Open Source Communities
Dr. Matthias StürmerSenior Advisor, Ernst & YoungJune 7, 2011
Matthias Stürmer, Ernst & Young
Short Bio Matthias Stürmer
● Senior Advisor at Ernst & Young EMEIA Financial Services since 2010
● Before at Swiss open source software provider Liip● Dr. sc. ETH Zürich at the Chair of Strategic
Management and Innovation of ETH Zürich, thesis on firm involvement in open source communities
● Business administration and computer science at University of Bern
● Founder and secretary of the Swiss National Parliamentarian Group for Digital Sustainability
● Member of the Board of Swiss Open Systems User Group /ch/open
Ernst & YoungBelpstrasse 233001 [email protected]: +41 58 289 61 97
Matthias Stürmer, Ernst & Young
Agenda
1. Forking today
2. Motivation and the private-collective model of innovation
3. Benefits and best practices of corporate community building
4. Balancing act between openness and control
5. Little surprise...
Matthias Stürmer, Ernst & Young
Forking today
OpenOffice.org LibreOffice
Matthias Stürmer, Ernst & Young
Forking today
MySQL
Drizzle
MariaDB
Matthias Stürmer, Ernst & Young
Forking today
Compiere Adempiere
Matthias Stürmer, Ernst & Young
Forking today
Nagios Icinga
Matthias Stürmer, Ernst & Young
Forking today
Are these all failed open source projects?
Matthias Stürmer, Ernst & Young
Forking today
No, the core team just didn't manage well its community.
Forking is the community‘s Sword of Damocles.
Matthias Stürmer, Ernst & Young
Agenda
1. Forking today
2. Motivation and the private-collective model of innovation
3. Benefits and best practices of corporate community building
4. Balancing act between openness and control
5. Little surprise...
Matthias Stürmer, Ernst & Young
Like every country, every open source community is unique
Matthias Stürmer, Ernst & Young
Motivation for individuals to contribute
Intrinsic Motivation:
Can be enjoyment-
or obligation-based incentives
Internalized Extrinsic Motivation:
Can be non-monetary...
Extrinsic Motivation:
... or monetary incentives
● Ideology
● Altruism
● Kinship
● Fun
● Reputation
● Reciprocity
● Learning
● Own-use
● Career
● Pay
10 different reasons for individuals to contribute to open source software:
Source: G. F. von Krogh, S. Haefliger, S. Spaeth, M. W. Wallin “Open Source Software: a Review of Motivations to Contribute”
Matthias Stürmer, Ernst & Young
Firms adopting the open source model
Building a firm-sponsored community by renouncing some of the project's controlLevel 3
Revealing proprietary source code under an open source license → full control by the firmLevel 2
Integrating externally available open source software → open innovationLevel 1
Source: Matthias Stuermer 2009 PhD Thesis “How Firms Make Friends: Communities in Private-Collective Innovation”
Matthias Stürmer, Ernst & Young
Motivation for firms to contribute
Level 2: Legal constraints
forced contributions
Level 3: Business benefits
voluntary contributions
● GPL demands contributions
● Low knowledge protection costs
● Learning effects for the organization
● Reputation gain
● Lower costs of innovation
● Lower manufacturing costs
● Faster time to market
7 different reasons for firms to contribute to open source software:
Source: Matthias Stuermer, Sebastian Spaeth, Georg von Krogh 2009 "Extending private-collective innovation: a case study"
Matthias Stürmer, Ernst & Young
Theory to explain firm contributions
yes no
yes
no
open source software
Rivalry
Excludability
proprietarysoftware
private good club good
commons public good
Matthias Stürmer, Ernst & Young
Theory to explain firm contributions
1. Private investment model● Appropriation of financial returns from innovations through IPRs
→ patents, copyright, licenses, trade secrets● Knowledge spillover reduces innovator's benefits
2. Collective innovation model● Investments in public goods → non-rival, non-excludable● Free riding problem → public funding, governments
3. Private-collective model of innovation● Innovators privately fund creation of public goods● Example: production of open source software by firms
Matthias Stürmer, Ernst & Young
Private-collective model of innovation
● Free knowledge sharing● Explains conditions when innovators receive rewards from private
investments in public good innovations● Rewards from process of innovation surpasses rewards of free-riders
→ involvement in innovation process● Process-related rewards are larger than process-related costs
→ public good innovation● What are such rewards or incentives?
Sources:Eric von Hippel, Georg von Krogh 2003 “Open Source Software and the Private-Collective Innovation Model: Issues for Organization Science”Eric von Hippel and Georg von Krogh 2006 “Free revealing and the private-collective model for innovation incentives”Georg von Krogh 2008 “Researching the Private-Collective Innovation Model”
Matthias Stürmer, Ernst & Young
Agenda
1. Forking today
2. Motivation and the private-collective model of innovation
3. Benefits and best practices of corporate community building
4. Balancing act between openness and control
5. Little surprise...
Matthias Stürmer, Ernst & Young
Why do managers want a community?
Benefits for open source project leaders having an active community:
● Free feature development● Free extension development● Free testing● Free bug reporting● Free bug fixing● Free customer support● Free documentation● Free marketing● etc.
Matthias Stürmer, Ernst & Young
Best practices incorporate community building
Two examples:
Eclipse by IBM
Maemo by Nokia
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Evidence from the Eclipse case
Key benefits for IBM:
1. COCOMO: external contributions of 21.5 million LOC by 2007~ 214,000 man-months ~ 1.7 billion USD
2. Standard-setting in Java IDE, beating competitor Sun
3. Strategic platform for IBM software solutions: basis for proprietary applications
Source: Sebastian Spaeth, Matthias Stuermer, Georg von Krogh 2010 "Enabling knowledge creation through outsiders: towards a push model of open innovation"
Matthias Stürmer, Ernst & Young
What did IBM do?
1. Preemptive generosity● Revealing of initial Eclipse source code by IBM
2. Continuous commitment● Constant number of IBM programmers in Eclipse● Constant level of participation in newsgroups
3. Adaptive governance structures (giving up control)● Non-profit foundation with equal membership of firms
4. Lowering barriers to entry● Sub-projects by non-IBM people; modular architecture
Source: Sebastian Spaeth, Matthias Stuermer, Georg von Krogh 2010 "Enabling knowledge creation through outsiders: towards a push model of open innovation"
Matthias Stürmer, Ernst & Young
Nokia's (past) open source community building
● 2003: product decision for Nokia 770 tablet● 2007: successor devices N800 and N810● June 2009: Nokia partners with Intel for Maemo● August 2009: Maemo shall supersede Symbian as smartphone platform● October 2009: Nokia releases smartphone N900● March 2010: Nokia Maemo and Intel Moblin become MeeGo● March 2011: Nokia partners with Microsoft for Windows Phone 7...
(for strategic reasons)
Matthias Stürmer, Ernst & Young
What did Nokia do?
Source: Matthias Stuermer, Sebastian Spaeth, Georg von Krogh 2009 "Extending private-collective innovation: a case study"
Matthias Stürmer, Ernst & Young
What did Nokia do?
Source: Matthias Stuermer, Sebastian Spaeth, Georg von Krogh 2009 "Extending private-collective innovation: a case study"
Matthias Stürmer, Ernst & Young
Agenda
1. Forking today
2. Motivation and the private-collective model of innovation
3. Benefits and best practices of corporate community building
4. Balancing act between openness and control
5. Little surprise...
Matthias Stürmer, Ernst & Young
Control of open source projects
Community-driven open source projects● Meritocracy: “exercise of control on the basis of knowledge” *
● Technical contributions and organizational-building behavior lead to authority and control **
Firm-driven open source projects● Why do firms want control?
● Business model: value creation and value appropriation
● Firms need control to appropriate returns of investment
● Balancing act between openness and control
Sources:* Max Weber 1978 “Economy and society”** Siobhán O'Mahony and Fabrizio Ferraro 2007 The emergence of governance in an open source community
Matthias Stürmer, Ernst & Young
Firms influencing open source projects
Corporations influence open source projects when...● firms reveal previously proprietary code.
● firms contribute code.
● firms control release management.
● firms employ core developers who previously contributed as unpaid volunteers.
● firms contract intermediary OSS firms and individuals.
Firm-driven open source projects face challenges such as..● lack of external contributions. (issue 1)
● possible crowding-out effects of intrinsic motivation. (issue 2)
Matthias Stürmer, Ernst & Young
Issue 1:Balancing act between openness and controlControl decreases contributions *
● Transparency increases contributions strongly **
● Accessibility increases contributions slightly **
Balancing is difficult● Too much control: communities may not contribute with all of their
energy, interest, and creativity
● Too little control: results may not serve the firm's goals
Sources:* Sonali Shah 2006 “Motivation, governance, and the viability of hybrid forms in open source software development”; Dahlander and Magnusson 2005 “Relationships betweenopen source software companies and communities: observations from Nordic firms”** Georg von Krogh, Sebastian Spaeth, Matthias Stuermer, Guido Henkel 2009 “The Credible Sponsor: Participants’ Motivation and Organization Attributes in Collaborative Digital Innovation
Matthias Stürmer, Ernst & Young
Issue 1:Effect of control on motivation
Perceived firm attributes Individual Identification, Motivation, and Contribution
⊘
Source: Georg von Krogh, Sebastian Spaeth, Matthias Stuermer, Guido Henkel 2009 “The Credible Sponsor: Participants’ Motivation and Organization Attributes in Collaborative Digital Innovation
Matthias Stürmer, Ernst & Young
Issue 2:Crowding-out of intrinsic motivation
Source: Matthias Stürmer, LinuxTag 2007 Berlinhttp://www.slideshare.net/nice/crowding-effects-how-money-influences-open-source-projects-and-its-contributors
Matthias Stürmer, Ernst & Young
Agenda
1. Forking today
2. Motivation and the private-collective model of innovation
3. Benefits and best practices of corporate community building
4. Balancing act between openness and control
5. Little surprise...
Matthias Stürmer, Ernst & Young
Ernst & Young's new publication on open source● For your clients: Why and how to
professionally use open source software● Content:
● Benefits, risks and good practices● Professional application of
open source software● Legal aspects of open source● Background information on
open source software
PDF online end
of June 2011