Kerstin Balka. Open Source Product Development

Transcription

1 Kerstin Balka Open Source Product Development

2 GABLER RESEARCH Forschungs-/Entwicklungs-/Innovations- Management Herausgegeben von Professor Dr. Hans Dietmar Bürgel (em.) Universität Stuttgart Professorin Dr. Diana Grosse, vorm. de Pay Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg Professor Dr. Cornelius Herstatt Technische Universität Hamburg-Harburg Professor Dr. Hans Koller Universität der Bundeswehr Hamburg Professor Dr. Martin G. Möhrle Universität Bremen Die Reihe stellt aus integrierter Sicht von Betriebswirtschaft und Technik Arbeitsergebnisse auf den Gebieten Forschung, Entwicklung und Innovation vor. Die einzelnen Beiträge sollen dem wissenschaftlichen Fortschritt dienen und die Forderungen der Praxis auf Umsetzbarkeit erfüllen.

3 Kerstin Balka Open Source Product Development The Meaning and Relevance of Openness With a foreword by Prof. Dr. Cornelius Herstatt RESEARCH

4 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at Doctoral thesis, Hamburg University of Technology Hamburg-Harburg, st Edition 2011 All rights reserved Gabler Verlag Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH 2011 Editorial Office: Marta Grabowski Sabine Schöller Gabler Verlag is a brand of Springer Fachmedien. Springer Fachmedien is part of Springer Science+Business Media. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright holder. Registered and/or industrial names, trade names, trade descriptions etc. cited in this publication are part of the law for trade-mark protection and may not be used free in any form or by any means even if this is not specifically marked. Cover design: KünkelLopka Medienentwicklung, Heidelberg Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany ISBN

5 Foreword Open source software development has received considerable scholarly attention, much of which is based on the presumption that the open source model holds some lessons of broader applicability. Nonetheless, knowledge of its deployment outside the software industry is very limited. Until recently, limitations to the availability of successful empirical examples of this new innovation model outside software may have been a key reason for this gap. Kerstin Balka s dissertation focuses on the open source development of tangible objects, so-called open design. She proposes a generalized definition of open source development and a more careful treatment of the meaning of openness. Openness is often regarded as a dichotomous variable (open-source vs. closed-source) and it is assumed that online developer communities demand full opening of the product s source. To explore the landscape of open source development in the world of atoms, this dissertation presents a comprehensive study of open design projects (n = 104) in order to analyze project characteristics, structures, and success, and to investigate similarities and dissimilarities to open source software development. Drawing on six comparative case studies, it subsequently analyzes the workings of open design in close detail. The following quantitative study aims to explore openness as a gradual and multi-dimensional concept. Kerstin Balka conducts an Internet survey (n = 309) among participants of 20 open design communities in the domain of IT hardware and consumer electronics. She finds that open design projects pursue complex strategies short of complete openness and that communities value openness of software more highly than openness of hardware. A multilevel statistical model shows how openness impacts developer s satisfaction and their contribution. The findings of Kerstin Balka show that open source development can be successfully applied to physical objects as tangible products can be increasingly developed like digital products. They further suggest that open design companies can successfully implement strategies of partial openness to safeguard value capture without alienating their developer community.

6 VI This dissertation addresses both academics and practitioners and becomes a must read for everybody dealing with the phenomenon of Open Source Innovation in theory and practice. Univ. Prof. Dr. Cornelius Herstatt

7 Preface This dissertation presents research on open design and openness that I conducted between 2008 and 2010 at the institute of Technology and Innovation Management at Hamburg University of Technology. Though only my name appears on the cover of this document, a great number of people have supported and inspired me throughout its development. I owe my gratitude to all those people who have made this dissertation possible and because of whom my dissertation experience has been so enjoyable and valuable. First and foremost I would like to thank my advisor, Prof. Dr. Cornelius Herstatt, for his time, support and insight. He continually encouraged me and his enthusiasm has always motivated me. I am also grateful to Prof. Dr. Thorsten Blecker for being my co-advisor and for leading and driving our joint research project on the transferability of open source to other industries. I am thankful for having had the opportunity to be part of a great team at the chair. I would especially like to thank Dr. Christina Raasch for her constant encouragement and support. She always found the time for helpful comments and continually challenged my thinking. Further I would like to thank the entire team for the exchange and support at our chair. This dissertation would not have been possible without the great support from the larger open source community. I would like to thank all contributors to open-innovation-projects.org, my interview partners, in particular Harald Welte, Dr. Michael Laurer, Dr. Adrian Bowyer, Zach Smith, and Erik de Bruijn, and all participants of my survey for their time and commitment. Most importantly, I am grateful to my family and friends. I thank my parents for their love and support in every stage of my live although my plans and ambitions often keep me away from home. I thank my boyfriend Simon for his encouragement of my research work. He technically supported openinnovation-projects.org and my survey. He also was one of the most critical reviewers of this dissertation and an important advisor with whom I could discuss and probe my thoughts. And I thank all my friends who encouraged me with their faith in me and who had helpful advices whenever needed. Kerstin Balka

8 Contents Contents List of Figures List of Tables List of Abbreviations IX XIII XV XVII I Focus and scope 1 1 Introduction Statement of the research problem and relevance Research design and approach Structure of the document Definition of terms 9 II Theoretical and methodological foundation 11 3 Perspectives from prior literature The private and collective investment models The meaning of openness Openness as a gradual concept Aspects of openness The community s perspective Open source software versus hardware Empirical studies of open source software Empirical relevance of open source beyond software Why is the situation different for digital and physical products?

9 X Contents But, hardware is becoming much more like software Why do firms get involved? The firm as a collection of productive resources and dynamic capabilities Value creation and value capture Reasons for firms to freely reveal OS business models Conclusions and implications for this research Research design and methodology Open source innovation (OSI) A disambiguation of OSI A conceptual framework for studying OSI Detailed research questions and resultant propositions Methodological research approach To discover the variety of open design To understand how open design works To investigate the meaning of openness III On the variety of open design 49 5 Study 1: The open design landscape The variety of open design Multivariate analysis Discussion of outcomes and research propositions rethought Study 2: Open design of tangible goods A comparative case study Overview of cases Case descriptions How does open design work? Who drives open design projects? What is being developed? How are open designs developed and produced? Is open design really open? Intermediate conclusions and implications for proceeding Discussion of first findings Replicability as a third aspect of openness Derivation of research hypotheses

10 Contents XI IV On openness in open design 87 8 Survey approach Questionnaire development Selection of communities Data collection The sample Data preparation Study 3: The meaning of openness is not trivial Software is more open than hardware Openness is important to open design communities Openness of software components is more important than openness of hardware components Highly active developers value openness more than less active developers The duration of participation does not influence perceived importance Study 4: How openness impacts developer s satisfaction and their contribution Ordinary linear regression models on satisfaction Multilevel models on developer satisfaction Do expectations towards openness influence this relationship? Effects on contributed working hours V Integration of findings Discussion of findings Summary of findings Open source software versus hardware - revisited Scope of generalization and limitations Conclusions Implications for theory Managerial implications Implications for future research

11 XII Contents VI Appendices 149 A Variable explanations 151 B Details Case study 155 B.1 Interview guideline B.2 List of interviews C Details Survey 159 C.1 Questionnaire: How open is open source - software and beyond 159 C.2 Survey results C.3 Stability tests D Alternative models 169 D.1 More ordinary linear models D.2 Details for selected multilevel models D.3 Transformations to normality D.4 Models considering expectations References 181

12 List of Figures 4.1 The open source innovation framework Unique human visitors from September, 2008 to March, Break down of approved projects on reasons for exclusion and selected cases Background of contributing actors and distribution of number of developers in projects Typification and complexity of developed objects Type of selected license and degree of openness Distribution of actors promoting and coordinating the development and of producing actors Start year and activity across projects Distribution of stages of advancement in projects Intended audience and degree of innovativeness Distribution across industries Home countries and means of communication Comparison of developer community size and activity against development status Complexity and innovativeness of developed objects versus stage of advancement Histograms of self-reported weekly contributed working hours and duration of activity Hierarchical variable clustering of survey results for hardware and software Scatter plot matrix of the five main constructs with univariate density estimates down the diagonal Histogram of transformed weekly contributed working hours Histograms showing ratings of importance of openness The importance of openness for software and hardware

13 XIV List of Figures 10.1 Diagnostic plots of an ordinary linear regression model (Model 10.1) Scatter plots of satisfaction vs. openness for 20 communities Normal distribution checks for model Normal distribution checks for Model Normal distribution checks for Model How openness impacts satisfaction (Model 10.8) Modeling the influence of expectations Check for normal distribution for Model The relation of openness, satisfaction, and contributed working hours D.1 Normal distribution checks for model

14 List of Tables 4.1 Summary of my methodological research approach Estimated correlations between selected variables Overview of selected cases Examples of open parts and partly open strategies in open design projects List of surveyed communities Correlations between pairs of constructs Main characteristics of constructs including implications from missing data imputation Degrees of openness for software and hardware components Importance of openness to participants Differences in importance of openness between software and hardware Perceived importance of openness across activity levels P-values of differences across developers activity levels concerning importance of openness Perceived importance of openness across duration levels Comparison of multilevel models showing AICs and p-values from ANOVAs Correlations between conformance to expectations and developer satisfaction or the respective constructs themselves Five main research questions Overview of research propositions Overview of research hypotheses B.1 List of interviews C.1 Exemplary results from stability tests

15 List of Abbreviations Content-specific abbreviations F/OSS Free/Libre Open Source Software OS Open Source OSS Open Source Software OSI Open Source Innovation OD Open Design IP Intellectual Property IPR Intellectual Property Rights NDA Non-disclosure agreement GNU GNU is not Unix GPL GNU General Public License BSD Berkeley Software Distribution MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology CC Creative Commons Mathematical abbreviations ANOVA Analysis of variance AIC Akaike Information Criterion BIC Bayesian Information Criterion DF Degrees of freedom n Number of observations n.s. not significant NAs Missing values p p-value μ Arithmetic sample mean σ 2 Sample variance ρ Correlation coefficient

16 XVIII List of abbreviations Abbreviations in modeling SW HW S O T A R C I Software Hardware Satisfaction Openness Transparency Accessibility Replicability Complexity Innovativeness Abbreviations of survey responses SD Strongly disagree (1) D Disagree (2) N Neutral (3) A Agree (4) SA Strongly agree (5) Indication of significance levels + p-value < 10% * p-value < 5% ** p-value < 1% *** p-value < 0.1% General abbreviations cf. compare (confer) e.g. for example (exempli gratia) et al. and others (et alii) etc. et cetera i.e. that is (id est) p. page vs. versus R & D Research and development CEO Chief Executive Officer OEM Original Equipment Manufacturer