Open source : a multidisciplinary approach / Moreno Muffatto.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Muffatto, Moreno.

Contributor:

Class of 1932 Fund.

Series:

Series on technology management ; v. 10.

Series on technology management ; v. 10

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Open source software.

Physical Description:

xiv, 245 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

London : Imperial College Press ; Singapore ; Hackensack, NJ : Distributed by World Scientific, [2006]

Summary:

In recent years, the way open source software is developed has taken hold as a valid alternative to commercial proprietary methods, as have the products themselves, e.g. the Linux operating system, Apache web-server software, and Mozilla Firefox browser. But what is open source software? How is the open source community organized? What makes this new model successful? What effects has it had and might it have on the future of the IT industry, companies and government policies? These and many other questions are answered in this book.

The first chapter gives a brief history of the open source community and the second chapter takes a close look at the relationship between intellectual property rights and software, both open source and proprietary. The next three chapters consider the who, the open source community, the how, software development both within and outside the community, and the what, open source projects and product quality. Chapters 6 and 7 focus on the different users of open source software: companies and governments respectively. These are followed by two chapters that interpret the phenomenon, first from an organizational point of view in Chapter 8 and then using the theory of complex adaptive systems in Chapter 9. The last chapter explores the current and potential applications of the concept underlying open source software in other fields.

Contents:

Chapter 1 History of Open Source 1

1.2 The Age of Pioneers 4

1.3 The Beginnings of the Open Source Movement 6

1.4 Diffusion 11

1.5 Institutionalization 13

1.6 Recent Developments 18

Chapter 2 Software and Intellectual Property Rights 23

2.1 What is Software? 24

2.2 Why Do Intellectual Property Rights Exist? 26

2.3 Types of IPR and How They are Applied to Software 28

2.4 Categories of Software 34

2.5 Copyright and Open Source Software Licenses 39

2.6 Open Source Software and Patents 45

Chapter 3 The Organization of the Open Source Community 49

3.1 "Who" is the Open Source Community? 50

3.2 Demographics 56

3.3 The Motivating Factors of Individuals and Organizations 57

3.3.1 Motivations for individuals 58

3.3.2 Motivations for organizations 62

3.3.3 Motivations for society 63

3.4 Organization of the Open Source Community 64

Chapter 4 Software Development Models 71

4.1 The Software Development Process 72

4.2 Software Development Process Models 73

4.2.1 The Build and Fix Model 73

4.2.2 The Waterfall Model 74

4.2.3 The Iterative Development Model 76

4.2.4 The Evolutionary Model 77

4.2.5 The Prototyping Model 78

4.2.6 The Spiral Model 79

4.3 Classification and Comparison of the Models 80

4.4 The Microsoft Model: Synch and Stabilize 83

4.5 Comparison between Synch and Stabilize and the Open Source Software Development Process 86

Chapter 5 Open Source Products and Software Quality 91

5.1 Open Source Software Projects 91

5.2 Open Source Software Products 95

5.3 Evaluating the Quality of Software 99

5.4 Evaluating Software Quality: the Capability Maturity Model 101

5.5 Evaluating Open Source Products 105

Chapter 6 Strategies and Business Models 111

6.1 Evolution of the ICT Industry 112

6.2 Increasing Returns and the Diffusion of Open Source Products 118

6.3 Company Strategy Towards Open Source Software 121

6.4 Can Open Source Software Lead to New Business Models? 125

Chapter 7 Government Policies Towards Open Source Software 133

7.1 Factors in Favour of Governments Adopting Open Source Software 133

7.2 Limiting Factors for the Adoption of Open Source Software 137

7.3 What Role Should Governments Play in Supporting and/or Adopting Open Source Software? 140

7.4 Government Policies Toward Open Source Software in Various Countries 143

7.4.1 European countries 144

7.4.2 Asian countries 153

7.4.3 American countries 157

Chapter 8 New Trends in Work Organization 163

8.1 Work Organization: The Open Source Community versus Commercial Companies 163

8.2 Changes in Organizational Models 167

8.3 Changes in the Way People Work 173

8.3.1 Time and place 174

8.3.2 Work autonomy 176

8.3.3 Creativity, passion and quality of work 178

8.3.4 Work ethic 181

8.4 Towards New Organizational Models 182

8.5 Impact on Social Capital 186

Chapter 9 Open Source as a Complex Adaptive System 189

9.1 Complexity and Complex Systems 189

9.2 What are Complex Adaptive Systems? 192

9.3 The Key Processes in Complex Adaptive Systems 193

9.3.1 Variation 194

9.3.2 Interaction 195

9.3.3 Selection 197

9.4 Open Source as a Complex Adaptive System 199

Chapter 10 Developments 207

10.1 Extension of the Concept of Openness 208

10.1.1 Peer-to-peer production 208

10.1.2 Open content 209

10.1.3 Knowledge organization 211

10.1.4 Knowledge diffusion 211

10.1.5 Peer collection 213

10.1.6 Peer accreditation 215

10.1.7 Peer production 217

10.2 Copyleft Applied to Non-Software Products 219

10.2.1 Creative Commons 221

10.2.2 Public Library of Science (PloS) 224

10.2.3 Other projects 225

10.3 Conclusions and Open Questions 227.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 231-245).

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Class of 1932 Fund.

ISBN:

1860946658

OCLC:

69672037