Participation in OS Participation in OS projects:projects:

Commercial and Individual motivation

IntroductionIntroduction

A quick poll of developers would give a list of reasons an individual might contribute resources, but why would a commercial operation give stuff away for free?

Phase 1: Go Open SourcePhase 2: ?Phase 3: Profit [1]

In this presentation we compare what motivates individuals and companies to participate in OSS

Motivation

Motivation is the activation of goal-oriented behaviour. – Intrinsic motivation refers to

motivation that is driven by an interest or enjoyment in the task itself

– Extrinsic motivation comes from outside of the individual.

Motivations areas– Economic (E)– Social (S)– Technological (T)

Internal Factors from Hars

and Ou [2]

• Intrinsic Motivation– Inborn need to feel competent and self

determining

• Community Identification–Maslow´s hierarchy of needs

• Altruism– Providing something at own cost• Time, Energy, Opportunity cost

External Factors from

Hars and Ou [2]

• Future Rewards– Revenue– Develop Human Capital– Self Marketing– Peer Recognition

• Personal Needs –Many projects start to satisfy a personal need

Individuals – Who?

• Hars and Ou [2] provide a breakdown

Individuals – Why? [3]

Learn and develop new skills 78.9%78.9%

Share knowledge and skills 49.8%49.8%

Participate in a new form of cooperation 34.5%34.5%

Improve open source products of other developers 33.7%33.7%

Participate in the open source scene 30.6%30.6%

Think that software should not be a proprietary good 30.1%30.1%

Solve a problem that could not be solved by proprietary software

29.7%29.7%

Improve my job opportunities 23.9%23.9%

Get help in realizing a good idea for a software product

23.8%23.8%

Limit the power of large software companies 19%19%

Get a reputation in the open source community 9.1%9.1%

Distribute not marketable software products 8.9%8.9%

Make money 4.4%4.4%

Don’t know 1.9%1.9%

Corporate motivations

• OS allows small companies to innovate• Contributions and feedback from the OS

community is seen useful, to fix bugs and improve software

• Improve reliability and quality of software• To be independent of the licence policies

of the large SW companies• Agreement with the values of the free SW

movement.

Company categories

Different types of companies have different motivations– HW product companies use OS to boost HW

sell– SW product companies use OS community as

an external team to improve their products .– Service companies have the business value in

the complementary services – Start-up companies can create new business

case or innovation on the existing code base–No license fees–No big investment

Other Business strategies

• Fight against a company having strong market share in a specific application area

• If a company cannot solve some complex problem, OS can be one solution.

• Create a good image

Corporate vs. individual

• Companies have more economic and technological motivations. [4]

• Major differences in motivations– Motivates developer

• Code should be free (S)• Learning incentive (T)

– Motivates company• Improve SW, better reliability and quality (T)

• Similarities

– Co-operation with the developers (S)

Paid DevelopersPaid Developers

• Key value proposition for company is Key value proposition for company is for employees to be committers who:for employees to be committers who:• Determine strategy of the OS projectDetermine strategy of the OS project• Can get problems fixed faster and betterCan get problems fixed faster and better• Has higher visibility in the CommunityHas higher visibility in the Community

• Provides marketing advantageProvides marketing advantage

• Makes the Company a more interesting / Makes the Company a more interesting / attractive employerattractive employer

– [5][5]

The Community ExpectsThe Community Expects

• CommitmentCommitment• OpennessOpenness• TransparencyTransparency• Giving backGiving back

References

1. Underpants Gnomes http://www.southparkstudios.fi/guide/characters/character_38/

2. Hars & Ou, Working for Free? – Motivations of Participating in Open Source Projects

3. Wang, He & Chen, Motivations of Individuals and Firms participating in open source community

4. Andrea Bonaccorsi, Cristina Rossi. Comparing motivations of individual programmers and firms to take part in the Open Source movement. From community to business

5. Riehle, Dirk, The Economic Motivation of Open Source Software: Stakeholder Perspectives