Open-source software provides an important example of how companies can leverage external sources of innovation. In practice, however, big high-tech companies often have a difficult time collaborating and sharing control.
While most people have heard of Linux, an open-source community founded by individual programmers, increasingly companies are sponsoring their own communities and supplying development resources, infrastructure, and initial technology in the hope of attracting individuals and other businesses to help them create products and services for potential users. Sponsors also set rules for developing and using cooperatively developed software, to align the community to corporate objectives and avoid time-consuming negotiations inherent in shared governance.
But the tighter their control, the harder it is to attract outside participation. Sharing seems particularly challenging for large companies that are used to having their own way and running their own ecosystems. In the past five years, three big companies have created new open-source projects and communities to adapt Linux for use in mobile communication devices. None would be mistaken for a grassroots democracy.
Early Breakthroughs
The first was Nokia, which in 2005 announced its Maemo project and released the first of its series of “Internet tablets” (the Nokia 770, followed by the N800, N810, and N900), which boast larger screens and form factors than Symbian-based smartphones. In 2007, Intel announced it had cloned the Maemo code to create Moblin, a version of Linux that would run on its Atom processors rather the ARM-based CPUs used in Nokia and other mobile phones.
And most famously, Google announced its Android operating system, also in 2007. The first phone shipped a year later, and since then more than two dozen phones have been developed. Led by Motorola’s Droid, Android captured nearly 10 percent of the U.S. smartphone market last year.
In all cases, computer codes are shared, but production decisions…