Of Open Source and Open Innovation

“What’s interesting here is that Linus is actively soliciting
suggestions for his fledgling Linux – there’s no sense of him
simply seeking other coders to implement his ideas, as was the case
with Stallman.

“Over the next few months people from around the world started
to offer more and more suggestions, and also to become actively
involved. That was possible because Linus had posted the code
online (although not initially under the GNU GPL – that came later)
and because the Internet by then had become cheap enough and
sufficiently widely available that geography became less of an
obstacle to taking part (Linus’ location in Finland probably played
a big part here: since local hacking communities were tiny, he was
forced to reach out globally.)

“As more coders joined in, the open development process evolved.
But the key elements remained the same: participation completely
open to all (coders and users); bottom-up rather than top-down
(although Linus always has the final decision about which of those
bottom-up suggestions should be adopted); and based on online
rather than personal collaboration. Putting those together created
not just what came to be called “open
innovationâ€, but a process that could scale. “

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