Although open source proponents tout their development model and various success stories of open source technologies, little is said about whether open source facillitates frontier, pioneering innovation.

One of the differences between the open source and proprietary development models relates to the distinction of basic versus applied research. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab defines basic research as that which “lays down the foundation for the applied science that follows. If basic work is done first, then applied spin-offs often eventually result from this research.” Applied research is defined as “designed to solve practical problems of the modern world, rather than to acquire knowledge for knowledge's sake.” In the technology industries, basic research generally maps to R&D, and applied research to product development. Arguably, open source partakes very little in the former.

IndustryWeek has a good article on the importance of basic industrial and scientific R&D. The context of the article is that increased government spending on basic research is needed to help industry pursue breakthrough innovations. With decline in federally funded R&D, industry shifts “reduced R&D allocation from basic research to primarily applied product development.” This results in delaying “new disruptive technologies needed to drive future industry, (which, in turn) translates into a diminished industrial future as the emergence of new disruptive technology development platforms is delayed."

Sound familiar? With reduced basic R&D, industry turns to mixing-matching existing technologies (perhaps through extensive global peer collaboration efforts) and innovation is delayed. The IndustryWeek article continues: “R&D practices have been reduced to a commoditization of existing knowledge and technology through global collaboration.”

Certainly, most technology companies don’t have the research budgets to undertake the kind of R&D at HP, Intel, Microsoft or Xerox. To the extent they undertake basic R&D, small companies must therefore obtain patents for “some exclusivity on the things that they're making or designing” to recoup their investment. The article continues that while it is "virtually impossible to either know or satisfy yourself in advance of coming out with a product that you're not going to infringe somebody's rights. Totally new, disruptive technologies lessen that risk.”

Finally, the article states that “future advances in interdisciplinary science will increasingly depend on a growing government role in basic research." Of course, “government role” means government R&D subsidies, research contracts and procurement of government R&D). This again raises my previous question of whether government, specifically, Defense Department, spending on open source would actually go into technological R&D, or simply dollars for services, the latter would not fit into the kind of basic R&D essential for innovation.