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Abstract:
The aim of this paper is to focus on the emerging situation in which open source software is nowadays produced not only by individual developers but in a growing proportion by firms that hire programmers for their own objectives of development in open source or for contributing to open source projects in the context of dedicated communities. As commercial firms it is important to analyze how and why they are capable of drawing benefits from such involvement and their connected activities. Moreover, we want to stress the different types of business model these firms rely on and the possible evolution they are likely to follow in the near future. We shown how Open Source principles provide an alternative way of thinking and managing intellectual property that do not come up against the same problems but needs a radical change in the way of drawing commercial benefits from knowledge development tasks. Then we analyze the growing involvement of commercial actors by setting up a typology of the different business models that can be observed in the OS landscape, how they correspond to the different strategies of industrial firms according to the main characteristics of their technical skills and market position. Finally, in a conclusive section we will draw the main lessons of the FLOSS experience for a possible enlargement of those principles of IPR management and business to other knowledge based commercial activities.

Open Source Software , intellectual property rights , GPL , knowledge sharing , entreprise strategy, business model, users, competition

Abstract:
The concept of diffusion is central to every social system, because it underpins the coherence of individuals' behaviour and representations, and hence the coordination of their actions. The idea at the origin of the concept of diffusion is that inter-individual interactions are the driving force behind the evolution of individuals' behaviour, beliefs and representations. Our approach in this paper is based on social influence networks. Agents are embedded in social networks where the advance of influence depends on the propagation of "avalanches", giving central importance to the network structure. We consider the noise produced by those avalanches as a characteristic of the social structure that can contribute, through the evolution of links, to transforming the network structure, and hence the dynamics of the diffusion. We then explain why peculiar "critical" diffusion dynamics emerge, characterised by a power law distribution, instead of the exponential shape of traditional diffusion curves.

Diffusion, social influence, social networks, structure, social learning, links evolution, power law

Abstract:
In this paper we model the formation of innovation networks as they emerge from bilateral decisions. In contrast to much of the literature, here firms only consider knowledge production, and not network issues when deciding on partners. Thus we focus attention on the effects of the knowledge and information regime on network formation. The effectiveness of a bilateral collaboration is determined by cognitive, relational and structural embeddedness. Innovation results from the recombination of knowledge held by the partners to the collaboration, and its success is determined in part by the extent to which firms' knowledge complement each other. Previous collaborations (relational embeddedness) increase the probability of a successful collaboration; as does information gained from common third parties (structural embeddedness). Repeated alliance formation creates a network. Two features are central to the innovation process: how firms pool their knowledge resources; and how firms derive information about potential partners. When innovation is decomposable into separate sub-tasks, networks tend to be dense; when structural embeddedness is important, networks become cliquish. For some regions in this parameter space, small worlds emerge.

Networks, Innovation, Knowledge, Collaborative R&D, Embeddedness

Abstract:
Free, libre or open source software (FLOSS) is nowadays produced not only by individual benevolent developers but, in a growing proportion, by firms that hire programmers for their own objectives of development in open source or for contributing to open source projects in the context of dedicated communities. A recent literature has focused on the question of the business models explaining how and why firms may draw benefits from such involvement and their connected activities. They can be considered as the building blocks of a new modus operandi of an industry, built on an alternative approach to intellectual property management. Its prospects will depend on both the firms' willingness to rally and its ability to compete with the traditional 'proprietary' approach. As a matter of fact firms' involvement in FLOSS, while growing, remains very contrasted, depending on the nature of the products and the characteristics of the markets. The paper asks why do for-profit firms contribute to FLOSS development and why some firms contribute more than the others. The common explanation is that FLOSS is often a complement to proprietary software (or hardware or services) that the for-profit firm sells at a positive price. We present an alternative explanation based the users' skill level. When users are skilled, opening the software is likely to result in a better product because the user base will contribute improvements (find bugs, write fixes and produce new features). We introduce the concept of the dominant user's skill and we set up a theoretical model to better understand how it may condition the nature and outcome of the competition between a FLOSS firm and a proprietary firm. We discuss these results in the light of empirical stylized facts drawn from the recent trends in the software industry.

'Free'/'libre' or 'open source' software, Industrial economics, dominant user's skill

Abstract:
The aim of this paper is to focus on the emerging situation in which open source software is nowadays produced not only by individual developers, but in a growing proportion by firms that hire programmers for their own objectives of development in open source, or for contributing to open source projects in the context of dedicated communities. It is important for commercial firms to analyze how and why they are capable of drawing benefits from such involvement and their connected activities. Moreover, the paper stresses the different types of business models these firms rely on and the possible evolution they are likely to follow in the near future. The paper shows how Open Source principles provide an alternative way of thinking and managing intellectual property that do not come up against the same problems but need a radical change in drawing commercial benefits from knowledge-development tasks. The paper then analyzes the growing involvement of commercial actors by setting up a typology of the different business models that can be observed in the OS landscape; how they correspond to the different strategies of industrial firms according to the main characteristics of their technical skills and market position. The paper concludes by drawing the main lessons of the FLOSS experience for a possible enlargement of those principles of IPR management and business to other knowledge-based commercial activities.