Users as Innovators - Why Open Source Works

eaglemoon writes "Many people still have difficulty understanding why open source software projects are successfull. The Boston Globe has an interview with Eric von Hippel, a Professor at MIT Sloan School of Management, on users as innovators. In his new book, von Hippel, discusses how open source projects draw on the creativity of ''lead users," who are often ahead of the curve on technology and marketplace trends. Von Hippel shows the trend already is more advanced than is generally known, and users often freely reveal their innovations for the common good. The social efficiency of a system in which individual innovations are developed by individual users is increased if users somehow diffuse what they have developed to others.....he also notes that the transition to user-centered innovation is hard for some companies to swallow.
The online version of the book is available under a Creative Commons license."

Comments

Problem

[elid]

One major problem with open-source is the lack of artists willing to work under such a license. For an example ot what results, see the "new" FreeCIV.

Re:Problem

[aCapitalist]

The reason is that artists don't have a culture of sharing like coders do (way before FSF or GNU), because that model doesn't really work with art - at least traditional art for obvious reasons.

Re:Problem

[bersl2]

This needs to be modded up higher.

In general, artists fear that someone will claim their work as their own, so they tend to be very anal about their babies: often, they ask that you not redistribute or alter their images, which kind of goes against the whole idea of free culture. (Trivia: the Berne Convention happened essentially at Victor Hugo's insistence. Case in point.)

We must mollify their fears if we are to largely gain them as an ally. We must show them that they will be no worse off using the principles of free culture than they are now, if they are willing to accept some change.

I cannot stress the importentce they play.

Scratching an itch

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux came about and developed because a bunch of people needed it for 'something'. It wasn't easily available so they developed it themselves. The trick was for Linus to provide a starting point and then not get in the way too badly.

Half the secret of encouraging innovation is just to stay out of the way. That's a lot easier with open source than with proprietary products.

the user's perspective

[kebes]

Users will have a perspective on products that the programmer never will--namely the perspective of someone who *doesn't understand* how the application works! After designing and/or programming a piece of software for a long time, you can get to know it so well that every aspect of it seems obvious. Yet to a fresh user, who has no clue what is going on behind the scenes, your choice of layout may seem confusing. It has been said (many times) before, but programmers/designers need to *listen* to what users are saying. If something is hard to use, then it should be fixed! And yes, the users of a product will have tons of useful ideas for how to make a product better.

Programmers know too much about the inner workings of a system... and thus they will immediately think of all the reasons why an innovative idea (interface element or feature) won't work. But the naive user, not encumbered by such restrictive thinking, may propose powerful features and novel interaction schemes. Some of these won't work, and some really are too hard to code, but there are many gems.

Just remember

[YrWrstNtmr]

open source projects draw on the creativity of "lead users," who are often ahead of the curve on technology and marketplace trends.

Some of those curves and trends lead to dead ends. Valid dead ends.

Don't get discouraged when they do, know when to kill it, and move on in a different direction. But do move on.

Re:Polish

[jayloden]

I often think about this very topic...if someone or someones would come along and put the pedal to the medal on polishing those things off, Linux would become one hell of a competitor.

I think it comes down to the hacker mindset, where the interesting problem is king. No one wants to work on the "boring" tasks like cleaning up GUI buttons and interface text. They'd rather work out exotic new gut level kernel code or rough out the next great feature. We're always questing for the next feature and getting it sketched into the system, and never quite get around to inking everything in. I think eventually, this will happen, at least to some degree. In some places it IS happening, but it's going to take time.

-Jay

Re:What does "lead users" have to do with open sou

[benjamindees]

There must be a big myth that open source end-users have more influence with open source projects.

There's more money in OSS than you think. Of course proprietary developers listen to their customers too, but to a lesser extent. The difference is, OSS providers can't hide behind lock-in file formats, obtrusive licenses, and established monopolies if they want to make money. They have to earn it, by listening to users and providing for their needs.

And it's not as easy as a "usability study" would have you believe. It means living with users day in and day out and dealing with all of their problems, not just watching them click a few buttons for a couple of hours and optimizing the menus. A vast majority of the proprietary crap software wouldn't exist if all programmers were forced to then support it from the "hell desk". Fortunately for OSS, many developers *are* supporting end users directly, and code accordingly.

Re:Polish

[Peter La Casse]

I think it's a matter of the "90/90" rule; the first 90% is the fun part, and the second 90% is the not fun part.

Re:Did any mod actually read the linked pdf paper?

[siokaos]

This isn't a paper, it's notes from a presentation. A presentation for a writing class, you clod.

The 80-20 rule

[syousef]

Basically it's boring and expensive and hard work to polish a product.

If something is open source it's usually also free as in beer. It may take a hell of a lot of work to get it to the point where it's a good open source product. Unfortunately that last 20% of the work to polish it off takes 80% of the effort. Most of the time by the time you have a good product there's no one left willing to pay for it to be polished off. The developers themselves also lose interest: After all they could be making a small fortune doing something similar elsewhere, but they do it under the open source model for a variety of reasons - obviously they're usually more motivated by interest than money.

Re:Scratching an itch-Bleed a victum.

[Dwonis]

The other half is telling them "write it yourself" when they complain about the software. That too is easier with open source, compared to proprietary products.

Part of the reason for that is that any teenager can complain and make half-baked "suggestions", even if they barely have any idea of what they're talking about (written by Yours Truly over 4 years ago).

I think if the "write it yourself" attitude completely disappeared, there would be no large open-source projects, because all the developers would burn out due to frustration. :-)

Re:OSS discovers science.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or perhaps it is re-proving what corporate influence is helping the scientific community to forget.