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Nick Carr comments on a Linux Foundation report that over 70% of Linux kernel development is done by paid workers at commercial firms. Apparently, Linux has become a corporate initiative. Carr writes: There's nothing particularly surprising in the shift from the volunteer to the corporate model - it tends to be what happens when lots of money enters the picture - but it does reveal that while Net-based "social production" efforts may be unprecedented in their scale and unusual in their technology-mediated structure, they are no more immune, or even resistant, to being incorporated into established market systems than any other type of labor that produces commercially valuable goods.
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The shift in Linux kernel development from unpaid to paid labor, from volunteers to employees, suggests that the Net doesn't necessarily weaken the hand of central management or repeal old truths about business organization. Right. I would add that the increasing corporate aspects of Linux, formal capital-organizational structure, is good for its sustainability and viability in the market. Free software advocates may disagree with this point, yet they turn a blind eye and undoubtedly rejoice in the gains of Linux from its increasing corporate nature.
Carr notes that writer Tom Slee provides additional insights: Open source started off as a small-scale set of projects done mainly by volunteers. As the scale and scope of open source projects an increasing number have provided their contributors with some money (augmented perhaps by a waitressing job). Now a few of the most successful have hit the big time and become full-scale economically important commercial enterprises.
Things change. As open source software has matured and expanded it has become both more unlike the rest of the world and more like it. It will be fascinating to see what comes next, but the Linux Foundation report has made clear that open source has crossed its commercial Rubicon, and there is probably no going back. If the FOSS Movement embraces the benefits of the corporate model, its growth and impact on the technology sector will benefit. But if it continues to repudiate all aspects of corporate commercialization, it should look towards itself rather than blame established firms and intellectual property rights for stifling FOSS innovation. The FOSS Movement's game of antagonism towards the corporate world while reaping positive rewards from it has held it back- perhaps as much as FOSS ideology.
posted by Noel Le @ 11:03 AM | Free Culture Movement
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