home > programme > break out session 7
open source as innovation model
March 17: 15.00 – 16.30 - Koepelzaal
Speakers: Alessandro Nuvolari (Eindhoven Centre for Innovation Studies), Rishab Aiyer Ghosh (MERIT/International Institute of Infonomics), Valentijn Sessink (OpenOffice.nl) and Arjen Kamphuis (IT architect). Moderator: Geert Lovink (Media Theorist)
Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) is software for which the source code is made available to the user. By allowing the code to be adapted and redistributed, other programmers can improve upon the software. FOSS refers not only to a way of licensing, but also to a strategy for organising innovation in a an interactive fashion, that is much more diffuse both geographically and hierarchically. FOSS development is characterized by specific social structures based around networked communities and with a cultural mindset that stresses, amongst others, the importance of sharing knowledge, collaboration, and individual status accumulation through peer recognition.
Over the years free/open source software has been gaining momentum. From its origin amongst the technical sub-cultures that helped shape the Internet, FOSS is now being adapted by multinational corporations and small and medium enterprises, by national and local governments, and by the non-profit and cultural sector. Some mayor IT companies (most notably IBM and Novell) have responded by embracing FOSS as a new way of organizing their innovation processes. Thus, FOSS is causing quite a stir in the commercial world, as large software corporations with linear innovation development strategies are finding themselves competing with geographically dispersed communities developing in creative interaction.
Questions that will be addressed
- What are the characteristics of the open source development model?
- In what ways is it different from other ways of development?
- What lessons can be learned from FOSS development and FOSS communities for
creative innovation?
- In what ways can FOSS contribute to a strong and creative digital public
domain?
- What obstacles are encountered? What improvements can be made? Actions for
public agenda.
