As “open-source” models move beyond software into other businesses, their limitations are becoming apparent
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This is only part of the article.
Full article at Mar 16th 2006
The Economist print edition
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EVERY time internet users search on Google, shop at Amazon or trade on eBay, they rely on open-source
software—products that are often built by volunteers and cost nothing to use. More than two-thirds of
websites are hosted using Apache, an open-source product that trounces commercial rivals. Wikipedia, an
online encyclopedia with around 2.6m entries in more than 120 languages, gets more visitors each day
than the New York Times's site, yet is created entirely by the public. There is even an open-source
initiative to develop drugs to treat diseases in poor countries.
The “open-source” process of creating things is quickly becoming a threat—and an opportunity—to
businesses of all kinds. Though the term at first described a model of software development (where the
underlying programming code is open to inspection, modification and redistribution), the approach has
moved far beyond its origins. From legal research to biotechnology, open-business practices have
emerged as a mainstream way for collaboration to happen online. New business models are being built
around commercialising open-source wares, by bundling them in other products or services. Though
these might not contain any software “source code”, the “open-source” label can now apply more broadly
to all sorts of endeavour that amalgamate the contributions of private individuals to create something
that, in effect, becomes freely available to all.
However, it is unclear how innovative and sustainable open source can ultimately be. The open-source
method has vulnerabilities that must be overcome if it is to live up to its promise. For example, it lacks
ways of ensuring quality and it is still working out better ways to handle intellectual property.
But the biggest worry is that the great benefit of the open-source approach is also its great undoing. Its
advantage is that anyone can contribute; the drawback is that sometimes just about anyone does. This
leaves projects open to abuse, either by well-meaning dilettantes or intentional disrupters. Constant
self-policing is required to ensure its quality.
This lesson was brought home to Wikipedia last December, after a former American newspaper editor
lambasted it for an entry about himself that had been written by a prankster. His denunciations spoke for
many, who question how something built by the wisdom of crowds can become anything other than mob
rule.
The need to formalise open-source practices is at a critical juncture, for reasons far beyond Wikipedia's
reputation. Last year a lengthy process began to update the General Public Licence—the legal document
which makes available “free software”, such as Linux, an operating system that poses a challenge to
Microsoft's dominance. The revision will enable the licence to handle issues such as patents and online
services. The drafting process uses the same approach as the software production itself. It relies on an
open collaboration that has hundreds of contributors around the world. “What we are actually doing is
making a global institution,” says Eben Moglen, a professor at Columbia Law School in New York and the
legal architect behind the licence.
One reason why open source is proving so successful is because its processes are not as quirky as they
may first seem. In order to succeed, open-source projects have adopted management practices similar to
those of the companies they vie to outdo. The contributors are typically motivated less by altruism than
by self-interest. And far from being a wide-open community, projects often contain at their heart a small
close-knit group.
With software, for instance, the code is written chiefly not by
volunteers, but by employees sponsored for their efforts by
companies that think they will in some way benefit from the
project. Additionally, while the output is free, many companies are
finding ways to make tidy sums from it. In other words, open
source is starting to look much less like a curiosity of digital culture
and more like an enterprise, with its own risks and rewards.
Projects that fail to cope with open source's vulnerabilities usually
fall by the wayside. Indeed, almost all of them meet this end. Of
the roughly 130,000 open-source projects on SourceForge.net, an
online hub for open-source software projects, only a few hundred
are active, and fewer still will ever lead to a useful product. The
most important thing holding back the open-source model,
apparently, is itself.