How can open source and business gain from each other?

The Danish Social Science Research Council supports research project at CBS with DKK 2.4m from 2005 to 2006.

The project is headed by Professor Ann Westenholz and embrace two smaller projects: one that focuses on software-developing companies and their cooperation with hackers in volunteer organizations, and one that focuses on open source communities and hackers’ cooperation with employees in software-developing companies.

Two ways to approach product development

“How can the open-source world, which builds on copy-left rights, and the closed business world, which stakes on copy-rights, gain from each other? It is two worlds that handle product development and knowledge sharing in different ways. During the last couple of years, the two worlds have started to learn from each other, and the project will investigate how institutional contractors get the two worlds to meet instead of starting copy-fights. An example could be a company with four employees that develops products by using open source and thus draw on a global network of IT developers. Should they have developed the product alone, they should have been 100 employees instead of only four. The project is to map the challenges and break down the barriers, says Ann Westenholz.