| dc.description.abstract | In open source software development, users rather than paid developers engage in
innovation and development without the direct involvement of manufacturers. This
paradigm cannot be explained by the two traditional models of innovation, the private
investment model and the collective action model. Neither model in itself can explain the
phenomenon of the open source model or its success. In order to bridge the gap between
existing models and the open source phenomenon, we analyze data from a web survey of
160 open source developers. First, we investigate the motives affecting the individual
developer’s contributions by comparing and contrasting the incentives from both the
traditional private investment and collective action models. Second, we demonstrate that
there is a common ground between the private and collective models where private
returns and social considerations can coexist. Third, we explore the effect of incentives
on the output of innovation—final product performance. The results show that the
motivations for individual developer’s contributions are quite different from the
incentives that affect product performance. | en |
