“One of the biggest developments in software during the past
decade has been the growth of the open source software movement. On
the face of it, even the existence of such a movement seems
bizarre: Why should large numbers of programmers around the world
volunteer to spend hour after hour writing code or catching bugs
without the hope of monetary gain? And yet they do. Open source
development has led to the creation of applications such as the
Linux operating system and the Apache web server. Launched eight
years ago at the initiative of Linus Torvalds, a Finnish student,
Linux-based operating systems have captured nearly 30% of the
server market….”
“What implications does the open source movement have for the
global software industry? Wharton’s Bruce Kogut and Anca Metiu
explore that question in a paper titled ‘Distributed Knowledge and
the Global Organization of Software Development.’ Based on
interviews with dozens of software engineers and managers in four
countries – the U.S., Ireland, India and Singapore –
the study points out that the growth of a global infrastructure has
made it possible to ‘exploit globally the opportunities opened by
the digitalization of production and products.'”
“Metiu and Kogut see the open source movement as a tremendous
driver of innovation. ‘The open development model opens up the
ability to contribute to innovation,’ they say. ‘It recognizes that
the distribution of natural intelligence does not correspond to the
monopolization of innovation by the richest firms or richest
countries. It is this gap between the distribution of ability and
the distribution of opportunity that the web will force companies
to recognize and to realign their development strategies.’ In other
words, engineers in China, Israel or India who are unable or
unwilling to move to Silicon Valley or the Research Triangle need
not be locked out of innovative product development: They can play
a vital role in the creation of new products and services.”