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  • The Success of Open Source
  • Nathan Ensmenger (bio)
The Success of Open Source. By Steven Weber. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004. Pp. viii+312. $29.95.

In an oft-cited passage from Tracy Kidder's The Soul of a New Machine (1981), the computer engineer Tom West, peering into the innards of a Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) VAX circuit board, discovers in the complex architecture of its wiring the technical manifestation of DEC's cautious, bureaucratic, organizational culture. In a similar manner, in The Success of Open Source, political scientist Steven Weber, peering into the inner workings of such open-source software projects as the Apache web server and the GNU/Linux operating system, sees a relationship between technical architecture and organizational structure. Open-source software is not so much an artifact as a process, argues Weber, a network of production systems and social arrangements that allow for the construction and maintenance of large, complex technological systems. But unlike traditional [End Page 860] methods for managing complexity in engineering and manufacturing, open-source development does not rely on careful planning, tightly controlled processes, and a rigid division of labor; rather, by configuring itself around radical new notions of property and ownership, open-source projects have managed to harness the creative efforts of thousands of widely distributed, voluntary contributors.

There is ample evidence that open-source software is a widespread and growing phenomenon: more than 65 percent of all websites are served up by the open-source Apache web server; 80 percent of the world's e-mail traffic is managed by Sendmail; and nearly 40 percent of large American corporations make use of the open-source GNU/Linux operating system. When IBM announced a $1 billion commitment to open-source development, this was only the most visible of a host of major corporations—and national, state, and municipal governments—to recognize the remarkable achievements of the open-source initiatives.

Its technological accomplishments notwithstanding, the true appeal of the open-source movement lies in its social and political philosophy. In the first half of his book, Weber provides a concise summary of the origins and development of this philosophy. Unlike much of the literature on the topic, Weber's analysis does not rely on vague analogies to evolutionary processes or fuzzy notions of "self-organization"; even though open-source communities might not be formally organized, Weber insists that they do have structure, and he carefully describes the mechanisms by which these communities define goals, achieve consensus, coordinate members, and manage dissent.

Since by definition open-source communities are widely distributed and loosely organized, gathering even the most basic data about them is difficult if not impossible. Weber does his best with what little empirical evidence is available, but the results are still less than satisfactory. The answers to straightforward but fundamental questions about participation—who? how? why?—remain tantalizingly unavailable.

In the absence of hard empirical evidence, Weber relies on social science theory to provide an explanation for the success of certain open-source projects. Although he speculates about individual motivations ("microfoundations") for participation (ideological, personal, and professional), his focus is on economic ("macro-organizational") explanations. Because open-source software is effectively non-rivalrous (giving away a copy does not diminish its value to the original owner) and benefits from positive network externalities (the more it is used, expanded, and updated the more valuable it becomes), it is what Weber calls an "anti-rivalrous" good: unlike traditional property, whose value is based on exclusive ownership, the value of open-source property derives from its distribution. It is this radical new notion of property, Weber argues, that represents the true essence—and promise—of the open-source movement. [End Page 861]

Although the economic theory that forms the basis of Weber's analysis is highly abstract and technical, he does an excellent job of making it accessible to the nonspecialist. In doing so, however, he also reveals the shortcomings of this type of analysis. By his own admission, economics is not well-suited to understanding complex human motivations such as altruism or ego. What is most fascinating about Weber's description of the open-source movement is its rich...

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