2.5.1
Open source software
The first mention of open source in the context of software was in 1996 (FoRK Archive, 1996), but open source as it is now understood was coined by Christine Peterson at a key meeting of individuals within the free software community, focusing on the openness rather than the free aspect (Peterson, 2018). Open source was seen as less restrictive to business than Free Soft- ware, allowing companies to keep some intellectual property (IP) private while open sourcing the remainder (DiBona et al., 1999).
Open source software relies on an Internet platform to enable contrib- utors to read, add to and submit code, where any user of the software can become a contributor by submitting code to the software architect. Their submission is accepted at the sole discretion of the software architect, in the process creating the boundary between code that is accepted and code that is not. The software architect can be a group rather than a single individual, as in the development of Linux, where Linus Torvalds worked with a group of key developers as the project grew (DiBona et al., 1999). Open source, as a mechanism for collaboration, has the advantages of less in the way of structure and overheads than consortia, also consortia can break down due to differences amongst members (Perens, 2005). The software architect, in playing a unifying role in bringing together contributions, is thus key to the governance of an open source software project.
In smaller open source software projects, governance becomes about ‘who has the right, recognized as legitimate by the community as a whole to re- distribute modified versions of the software’, often termed the software ar- chitect (Weber, 2004, p. 161). As an open source project grows, this architect needs to work with others to share the workload, raising issues of gover- nance within this group. O’Mahony (2007) sees open source as ‘community- managed governance’, based on the five principles of independence, plural-
2.5. OPEN SOURCE, NARRATIVES AND BUSINESS MODELS 47
ism, representation, decentralised decision-making, and autonomous par- ticipation. In this respect, larger software projects build on the role of the individual software architect, in that a group makes the decision on which contributions are accepted rather than an individual. The role of the soft- ware architect can be explained by considering open source as a narrative form of organisation.
2.5.2
Open source as narrative form of organisation
Bobrow and Whalen (2002) highlighted the importance of narratives in the Eureka knowledge system at Xerox, where technicians adapted the system to their needs, creating a community of practice (Lave and Wenger, 1991) in the process. Bagozzi and Dholakia (2006, p. 1099) highlight how open source user communities have the characteristics of ‘consciousness of kind, whereby members feel an intrinsic connection with other members and a collective sense of separation from nonmembers’, which in open source user groups ‘take the form of a shared narrative’. Weber (2004, p. 15) highlights that it is ‘ideas rather than technology’ that were behind both the first and second industrial revolutions, and also behind open source. These ideas can be communicated through narratives, where the software code itself forms a narrative that is shared by all contributors. As a narrative, open source could be considered as a form of organisation.
Organisations can be framed as goal-directed, boundary-maintaining and socially constructed, as defined by Aldrich and Ruef (2006), where an activ- ity system, or set of routines, distinguishes them from families and other small groups. Weber (2004) considers open source to be at the interface be- tween a network and a hierarchy, where boundary spanning is key, while Krishnamurthy (2006) frames open source as an ecosystem or virtual or- ganisation. As such an organisation, the boundary-maintaining equivalent of a constitution in open source is the software licence such as the General Public Licence, as the licence sets out how stakeholders will relate to each other (Weber, 2004). However, while in open source there are no mechanisms for formal accountability, open source still meets the criteria for identifying an organisation of intentionality, mobilisation of resources, creating formal boundaries and exchange of resources with outsiders (Katz and Gartner, 1988). This perspective of open source as a narrative form of organisation suggests that open source could be applicable in domains other than soft- ware.
48CHAPTER 2. RESEARCH PROBLEM AND RATIONALE FOR STUDY
spective, as ‘an emerging technological community that seemed to solve what I see as very tricky but basically familiar governance problems, in a very unfamiliar and intriguing way’, while Konieczny (2009) claims that initiatives based on the principles of open source, particularly Wikipedia, have the potential to overcome the “iron law” in organisations of evolving an oligarchy that eventually takes control. Lejeune (2010, p. 18) highlights how open source projects such as Open Directory, Debian and Wikipedia have evolved ‘mediated collectives’ where there is discussion leading to de- cisions on who does what, but they are not wholly democracies. Open source has an apparent paradox in how power operates, which can be explored by considering it as a power-balanced organisational structure.
2.5.3
Open source as a power-balanced structure
Power can be framed in terms of discourse, which can draw the boundaries of what is possible (Gaventa and Cornwall, 2000), through creating struc- tures of shared meaning (Holzscheiter, 2005). Linking more closely with open source, van Dijk (2016) framed power in terms of shared knowledge and ideologies. In open source, the shared knowledge is the source code, and the ideologies include the notion that the source should be open. The software architect draws the boundaries of the organisation through accept- ing contributions to the code at their sole discretion. This openness of the source code means that the power of the software architect to create an or- ganisational boundary is balanced by the power of contributors to choose a new software architect. In practice, however, this “forking” is relatively rare (Weber, 2004). It is the software architect’s narrative, expressed as both a vision for solving a particular problem and through the software code itself, that inspires contributions to the project. Open source can thus be viewed as a power-balanced form of organisational structure. This view of open source implies that it could be applicable to business, including to business models.
2.5.4
Open source as a narrative form of business model
A business model is essentially how the firm creates and captures value (Shafer et al., 2005; Chesbrough, 2006), and gains revenue from it (Ches- brough, 2010). Later writing extends the business model beyond the bound- ary of the firm (Zott et al., 2011), including how the firm’s business model can become part of that of investors, suppliers and customers (Mason and Spring, 2011). Järvi and Pellinen (2011) distinguish between one-sided and two-sided business models in the technology sector, where the one-sided