Share and share unlike: Reciprocity, corporate power, and the open source ethos

Abstract

The “open source” model initially emerged as a way for programmers to collaborate on efforts to build and share code, but has since evolved to embody an ethos of sharing and cooperation that pervades software development as a whole. As many technologists have seen, however, a philosophy of openness can leave them vulnerable to attempts by large corporations to use the norms of open source communities for their own benefits. This article examines the breach of social trust that occurs when companies do not fulfill expectations of reciprocity in their relationships with open source communities, and instead attempt to co-opt their work for monetary gain. Through analysis of three case studies, I seek to emphasize the often misleading nature of these processes and show that they are directly incorporated into the business models of large corporations, even if they are not openly acknowledged as such.

Innovating beyond firm boundaries: resource deployment control in open source software development

“…(2011) use the term multi-vendor project instead of community OSS to highlight that in some projects such as Android or Linux, multiple firms actively engage, which is different from pure community OSS projects where firm involvement is typically low. Dahlander (2007) not only distinguishes high and low firm participation, but he also suggests differentiating between firm-initiated and community-initiated projects, which typically have different norms and values (Vasudevan, 2021). Finally, Ciesielska and Westenholz (2016) identified six levels of commercial involvement in open source communities with specific challenges for each of the levels.…”