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Users as Innovators - Why Open Source Works

Posted by timothy on from the pave-your-path-where-the-grass-is-bent dept.

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."

5 of 251 comments (clear)

  1. The pie! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Pie! Pie! Pie!

  2. MIT by superpulpsicle · · Score: -1, Troll

    PLEASE, can we get some opinions from some other schools please. There is nothing this professor is saying that hasn't already been said a thousand times on slashdot.

    And why do these professors always speak for the "companies" when they spend half a life time in a school institutions. Anyone else absolutely sick of MIT?

  3. It "works" if you don't care about making a living by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    ~

    OpenSores "works" if you don't care about making a living. To those of us out there with a family, or even onesself, to take care of, it's out of the realm of feasibility. If I used the free labor resources I'd be all in favor of those that do spend their lives doing it to continue, for my betterment (there's too, natch). A worthy cause if ever there was one. But don't consider it if you need to make a living.

  4. Best summary of /. readers ever! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    LOL - that was the funniest shit Ive read all day!

    You have summarised /. readers in ONE LINE!!! Im impressed!

  5. MOD UP! PARENT USED 'M$'!!!1! SO TEH FUNNY!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    If you want to talk bad UI look at Linux. Tries - and fails miserably - at copying Windows and OS X.

    So how has OSS been more innovative? Copying commercial OS'es is innovative?