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Background-Purpose-of-Work.md

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###Background / Purpose of Work

The GitHub Glossary defines open source as

Open source software is software that can be freely used, modified, and shared (in both modified and unmodified form) by anyone. Today the concept of "open source" is often extended beyond software, to represent a philosophy of collaboration in which working materials are made available online for anyone to fork, modify, discuss, and contribute to.

As the definition suggests, the philosophy of collaboration, which thrives on the trust that results from openness and transparency, reaches far beyond applications in software and hardware development to influence the designs of our economic, political, and social systems. The result is a plethora of options, such as Creative Commons, regarding the treatment of intellectual property, licensure, and business models in an open source context. And these options are oftentimes fiercely debated as evidenced in the Peter Troxler exchanges concerning the posting “On Creative Commons and Open Source” 1.

Despite the lack of clarity with details, organizations that participate in the development, production, delivery, and support of goods and services for customers, clientele, and constituents are becoming increasingly aware of an emerging "collaborative economy"2 and their need to engage in it even though its very nature and function continues to evolve rapidly as indicated by Mohammed Hashim Kambal in his online commentary 3 and made in a posting by GELookahead 4. In effect, organizations stop restricting the flows of information and knowledge they control and make them freely accessible. In exchange, they generate revenue from the know-how and experience they have in how to usefully apply and create value from these flows.

For many organizations such a move is a radical departure from their prevailing operations and business models. The transition from a predominantly closed and competitive organization design to one that is much more open and collaborative requires a commitment by members the collaborating organizations to follow a flexible, adaptive framework for communication, action and learning as they go.

Key to their success rests, in part, on easy access to trusted platforms, processes, and tools that encourage open and transparent communication, facilitate the flows of meaningful content, highlight the ideas of innovators to be considered for research, development, and commercialization of open source products, services, and infrastructure, and showcase the keen interests, specialized skills, and valued reputations of peers. This combination can catalyze creative mixes and matches among ideas and resources and pave the way to sponsorship for promising projects and funding for business startups.

Organizations that want to move forward in a purposeful manner to experiment in the “collaborative economy” will not want to take "bet the farm" risks or incur "break the bank" expenses. To comply with these boundary conditions, key questions to consider from the outset include:

  • What such an endeavor might mean for the client?
  • How should the organization frame it up?
  • What would be realistic in terms of outcomes, budget, and timetable?

The following proposal draws upon these questions and noted conditions to outline a step-by-step approach for effective entry and participation in an open source environment.

Footnotes

  1. Peter Troxler, July 24, 2015 (4:27 a.m.), comment on Alicia, “On Creative Commons and Open Source,” Open Source Hardware Association, May 21, 2014 (9:15 a.m.), [http://www.oshwa.org/2014/05/21/cc-oshw/]. ↩

  2. Chase, Robin. Peers Inc: How People and Platforms Are Inventing the Collaborative Economy and Reinventing Capitalism. New York. PublicAffairs, 2015. ↩

  3. Mohammed Hashim Kambal, “[We might need a radical change in the sharing economy],” Medium, September 6, 2015. Accessed September 8, 2015.[https://medium.com/@mohammedhashimkambal/we-might-need-a-radical-change-in-the-sharing-economy-3d186664b59c]. ↩

  4. GELookahead, “Is this the end of the sharing economy? No—but the Ubers and Airbnbs of the world need reform,” The Economist, August 25, 2015. Accessed September 12, 2015. [http://gelookahead.economist.com/sharing-economy/]. ↩