Assignment:
The idea of Open has been most embraced in the technology sector. In this model, ideas are shared. Advice and help are offered freely by any one. The cooperative virtues needed for this new movement paradigm already exist in the "hacker" culture (O'Mahony, 2003); these hacker culture virtues form the philosophical underpinnings of the open source software movement.
The hacker culture prizes autonomy and self-determination. Eric Raymond defines hackers as those who love programming for the sake of doing it, for the sake of obsessively solving a problem. Thus, hackers who contribute to the open-source community are often intrinsically motivated (O'Mahony, 2003, para. 4).
This culture prizes skill and achievement above position or class (2003). The open source software movement embraces and embodies the positive aspects of hacker culture.
Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in (opensource, 2011, para. 2).
This Openness represents a new form of partnership in that the practices that previously supported open source development in the software industry have seemingly transferred over to a "leaderless" cooperative international movement.
Kindness (2010) made the case that both proprietary and standards-based models have their place, and used in conjunction with three stage chasm-crossing model (Moore, 2006) in explaining the role of each:
?During the innovation stage, innovators use proprietary models to differentiate the products and to provide radical new features and functions in a bid to standout from the competition;
?during the chasm-crossing stage, the market chooses which technologies are best able to provide real-world solutions; and
?during the standardization stage, standards bodies with help from stakeholders from industry, academia, and the end-user community define the standard.
How can you see the ideas of the Open movement supporting and growing an entrepreneurial venture?
References:
Kindness, A. (2010). Part 1: Standards and proprietary technology: A time and place for both.
Moore, G. A. (2006). Crossing the chasm: Marketing and selling disruptive products to mainstream customers. New York, NY: HarperBusiness Essentials.
O'Mahony, S. (2003). Inside the open-source development model.
opensource. (2011). Open Source Initiative - Home.