The Success of Open Source

by Steven Weber

Book Overview

Much of the innovative programming that powers the Internet, creates operating systems, and produces software is the result of "open source" code, that is, code that is freely distributed--as opposed to being kept secret--by those who write it. Leaving source code open has generated some of the most sophisticated developments in computer technology, including, most notably, Linux and Apache, which pose a significant challenge to Microsoft in the marketplace. As Steven Weber discusses, open source's success in a highly competitive industry has subverted many assumptions about how businesses are run, and how intellectual products are created and protected. Traditionally, intellectual property law has allowed companies to control knowledge and has guarded the rights of the innovator, at the expense of industry-wide cooperation. In turn, engineers of new software code are richly rewarded; but, as Weber shows, in spite of the conventional wisdom that innovation is driven by the promise of individual and corporate wealth, ensuring the free distribution of code among computer programmers can empower a more effective process for building intellectual products. In the case of Open Source, independent programmers--sometimes hundreds or thousands of them--make unpaid contributions to software that develops organically, through trial and error. Weber argues that the success of open source is not a freakish exception to economic principles. The open source community is guided by standards, rules, decisionmaking procedures, and sanctioning mechanisms. Weber explains the political and economic dynamics of this mysterious but important market development. Table of Contents: Preface 1. Property and the Problem of Software 2. The Early History of Open Source 3. What Is Open Source and How Does It Work? 4. A Maturing Model of Production 5. Explaining Open Source: Microfoundations 6. Explaining Open Source: Macro-Organization 7. Business Models and the Law 8. The Code That Changed the World? Notes Index Reviews of this book: In the world of open-source software, true believers can be a fervent bunch. Linux, for example, may act as a credo as well as an operating system. But there is much substance beyond zealotry, says Steven Weber, the author of The Success of Open Source ...An open-source operating system offers its source code up to be played with, extended, debugged, and otherwise tweaked in an orgy of user collaboration. The author traces the roots of that ethos and process in the early years of computers...He also analyzes the interface between open source and the worlds of business and law, as well as wider issues in the clash between hierarchical structures and networks, a subject with relevance beyond the software industry to the war on terrorism. --Nina C. Ayoub, Chronicle of Higher Education Reviews of this book: A valuable new account of the [open-source software] movement. --Edward Rothstein, New York Times We can blindly continue to develop, reward, protect, and organize around knowledge assets on the comfortable assumption that their traditional property rights remain inviolate. Or we can listen to Steven Weber and begin to make our peace with the uncomfortable fact that the very foundations of our familiar "knowledge as property" world have irrevocably shifted. --Alan Kantrow, Chief Knowledge Officer, Monitor Group Ever since the invention of agriculture, human beings have had only three social-engineering tools for organizing any large-scale division of labor: markets (and the carrots of material benefits they offer), hierarchies (and the sticks of punishment they impose), and charisma (and the promises of rapture they offer). Now there is the possibility of a fourth mode of effective social organization--one that we perhaps see in embryo in the creation and maintenance of open-source software. My Berkeley colleague Steven Weber's book is a brilliant exploration of this fascinating topic. --J. Bradford DeLong, Department of Economics, University of California at Berkeley Steven Weber has produced a significant, insightful book that is both smart and important. The most impressive achievement of this volume is that Weber has spent the time to learn and think about the technological, sociological, business, and legal perspectives related to open source. The Success of Open Source is timely and more thought provoking than almost anything I've come across in the past several years. It deserves careful reading by a wide audience. --Jonathan Aronson, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674012925
• ISBN13: 9780674012929
• Release Date: April 2004
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.4" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

A Real Page Turner

I'm a commercial software developer, and found the author's history of the UNIX culture and the story of its evolution into what we now call Open Source to be fascinating. That alone made it a good read for me. Add in the thought provoking analysis of the "whys" (the real point of this book), and it's a killer combo. Warning: the book is *full* of sentences like "Pluralism at many different levels is being enabled by communications technologies and by experimentation with property; together, these are reducing the marginal cost of adding voices toward an asymptote of zero." Despite that, I've been able to read it at the pace of a thriller, not a textbook.

A landmark work on the Open Source movement

I am a commercial software developer/manager who has often wondered about the broader motivations and implications of the Open Source movement, which is permeating many large patches of my industry. I found this book incredibly helpful in giving me the background I needed to understand the various Open Source products and articles I encounter day to day. Although my background is technical, this book generally is not. Although some technical information is unavoidable, Weber does a great job of maintaining his position as a professional political scientist and an informed layman on software technology. It may seem strange for a political scientist to approach this subject, but it turns out to be very beneficial because of the skill he has in analyzing organizations, their cultural, governmental, economic and societal impact. This isn't really a political science book; it is deeply about Open Source. But, Weber did manage to get me a little more interested in political science too. Weber is a terrific writer. This is one of the best-organized, concisely written and cleanly reasoned books I have ever read. That said, this is not light reading; you will need to put your thinking cap on and think big thoughts with the author pretty frequently. This is exactly what I was looking for. There's plenty of shallow analysis out there concerning Open Source. What Weber provides is the cross-discipline perspective of a professional scholar who has studied Open Source carefully. I believe this book will prove useful to future historians when they want to understand the roots of Open Source, which, as Weber presents, could be very profound to our global economy and culture over decades to come. The first chapter cleanly outlines the goals and big questions of the book. It also provides a primer on some of the main themes and terms such as the nature of property, what "free" means, current progress/status of Open Source etc. This brief chapter helps those who are very new to Open Source and sketches the trajectory of the rest of the book; just what you expect from a professional scholar. Chapters Two through Four are about 30% of the book and chronicle the historic roots of Open Source (primarily the Unix community) through the past few decades of computing. The history comes right up to the present to show how what started as fits and spurts for decades, has now become the wildly successful realization of an unlikely vision; a phenomena in modern technological accomplishments. These chapters help the reader grasp the true vision of Open Source. Chapter Five gathers hard data from surveys and empirical data from the online transcripts of Open Source projects to dissect the individual motivations of Open Source developers. There is very little guesswork here. Some of the myths about why the developers do what they do are dismantled and replaced with more intelligent information about their intricate motivations. Although I am not an Open Source

Incredibly insightful overview of the meaning of Open Source

I sat down intending to write Steven Weber a fan letter. (I decided to say it to you all instead.) I loved this book. I have 11 other books on open source, I wanted to learn everything I could because it's such a fascinating phenomenon. I thought I might even write about it. Never mind. Nothing I could write could touch this brilliant work. I had to work to read it. His range of subject matter was incredible. He talked computers like a hacker. He talked licenses like a lawyer. He talked economics like a business man. He talked business models like an entrepeneur or Venture capital investor. He told the history of open source like he was one of the voices of the movement. This book tells the whole story. In fields or industries I didn't know well, I had to google some stuff to grasp the entire meaning.He doesn't baby you. But, I loved that. I learned so much, I'm still bubbling with excitement. The book took two or three times longer to read than normal. But, I didn't want it to end. I've read over a hundred books this year. I've written some myself. Until today, I've never written a review. This book showed me how a book should be written. If you are seriously interested in the extraordinary story of open source, buy this book.

The best study in open source

By far it's the best study in open source I have read. Starting from social, political, and economical views, Steven Weber dissects the Open Source movement from a non-developer perspective. He goes beyond describing not only the origins and organization of the movement but also describing business models and roles that companies have been adopting to support and work with open source software. "The Success of Open Source" is a must-read for anyone wanting to understand what is open source and its relevance for today's society.

This is the book I wish I had written

I love this book. It is the book I wish I had written. You can sometimes tell it's written by someone who is not really a software development "native", but the economics and the Big Picture collaboration/cooperation stuff is spot on (and that's the whole point of this book, so...). I put little sticky notes on some of the pages because they were so pleasant to re-read. I had the sense that I was experiencing little epiphanies - perhaps these were just as the author intended. Get this book if you want a high-level, Big Picture coverage of the impact of open source and an overview of the relevant historical developments. -megan