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A New Spin on Open Source Business Models

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the coopetition dept.

IT Managers Journal is reporting that a Canadian communications student is trying to put a new spin on open source business models. Greg Dean, a student at Simon Fraser University, is attempting to merge the principles of open source with that of a co-op and a regular corporation. From the article: "On the first slide of his presentation, Dean described the ICT/OS as a 'participatory, self-managed workers' business' designed for 'getting the benefits of a corporation through the convivial democracy of a co-op.' Punctuated by dozens of questions, the rest of the presentation explained exactly how he thought this goal could be achieved. In his vision, the co-op would involve three types of members: full members, who are freelancers in high-tech professions and have full voting rights; associated members such as lawyers who provide services to the co-op; and non-members with an investment in the company."

2 of 93 comments (clear)

  1. Some differences.. by indraneil · · Score: 5, Informative
    The premise of the idea sounds interesting. I have had opportunities to work on localized open source work at University level in India. My father used to participate in a co-operative and I got to see some of the action up-close-and-personal.
    I agree that the two may work well together, but I am a bit concerned how the division of tasks will take place. In co-operatives, (atleast the one that I saw), there is usually a clear division of tasks. This worked ok because
    1. Though the notion of a co-operative is egalitarian, actually, there is a small group of dedicated people, who are most involved
    2. These people who usually form part of the board, are "more equal than the rest" and can actually make people do stuff that is important for the co-operative, but can sound unsavoury
    3. Also, the co-operative is a pyramidal thing, with the people towards the bottom being less skilled than the ones at the top. Its a small pyramid with a wide base, but, it is for sure a pyramid. The only reason the people at the base are willing to work there are, the money generated is for real, (and sometimes, because they trust the people above them to be working for their benefits)
    While what I said is nothing new and is already in place in most successful open source models, I find some differences which I would be interested in knowing, how the new model will bridge
    1. A co-operative of software engineers is hard to maintain, since every one comes with a high level of skill sets and the resultant ego. This makes the setting up of a pyramid very hard
    2. While there are successful models of monetization of open source, they are few and far between and most of these models are hard to replicate. This takes away the basic incentive of a co-operative
    3. A co-operative is often a below the radar operation, generating wealth with out too much of recognition. Most opensource projects (the way I see them) work the other way round
    Do correct me if I am wrong, but I would love to read more on what other people think on this!
  2. We're doing this with hosting, colocation, etc. by Graham+Freeman · · Score: 5, Informative

    Hi,

    Our group has been operating as a co-operative for about 10 months now. We're on the verge of incorporating, likely as a multi-stakeholder for-profit co-op based in British Columbia, Canada.

    We do colocation, virtual servers (Xen), virtual hosting (IMAP, Jabber, Apache, Zope/Plone, Drupal, DNS, etc.), and consulting in a co-operative model. Our members get pricing that reflects, as accurately as possible, the true cost of providing any given service. We also sell to non-members, from whom we attempt to make a profit. Members get the opportunity to provide consulting services through the co-op, and all profits go into improving the co-op's infrastructure and/or providing membership dividends.

    We have 16 members, ~US$3,000 in member investments, and a full-cab at a pretty good carrier-neutral colo facility in San Francisco. We have members in British Columbia, California, Hawai'i, Florida, and England. We also have participants in the Czech Republic.

    You can read more about our efforts here: http://www.cernio.com/cooperative/

    Graham
    +1 415 462 2991 (09h00 -> 22h00 Pacific time)