Innovation is of vital importance in the software market. It is very important that the company is based on a culture with a solid foundation in innovation. It is truly amazing how free software can be supported by the basic factors of western culture described by Samuel P. Huntington:
- Equality of people regarding their dignity: Free software equals both the producer and the consumer in the use of the software. Freedom: It is the basis of the movement, where you have complete freedom for any use, copy or modification of the software..Participation: Free software really allows anyone to participate in development. Solidarity: Free software is also free, and facilitates the use of anyone who needs it. Subsidiarity: The software producer cannot make any decision that could harm users, since the software doesn't really belong to you.
The principles of creativity, knowledge, efficiency and human values rest on these cultural bases. These principles, which must be present in all companies, seem to be further supported in this new business model, by completing the basic factors of Western culture not only from the point of view of the company, but also in addition to the user.
In other words, these factors on which the strategic approaches of creativity, knowledge, efficiency and human values are based are not only valued from the point of view of the company. Now the company-customer relationship is turned around, and viewed from the point of view of the software user. This is what Richard Stallman proposed: the freedom of users that must also lead to even social improvements.
Does it mean that commercial companies try to omit elemental factors of culture in their relationship with the customer? I honestly don't think so. The point of view is simply different. I do not believe that a commercial relationship between a software producer and a user, the sale of a binary code through licenses, implies any violation of the rights of either party. But the new business model simply implies vision from the other side, from the user side. And this has led to very important changes in the industrial sector.
El modelo de negocio basado en software libre facilita sobremanera la capacidad de innovación mediante la copia. De hecho, la empresa que adquiere la innovación mediante la utilización de software libre, ni siquiera debe hacer esfuerzo en realizar la copia, no supone un trabajo de análisis de producción para alcanzar la producción igual que la original. Simplemente es software el libre, y por lo tanto también lo es la innovación que represente.
Breakthrough innovation can come from different departments than development managers. At this point, the business enterprise may have advantages over an unorganized user community. The different departments of the company will collaborate in seeking breakthrough improvements, which do not have to come solely from the technical profile. Marketing or the financial department, for example, can (and should) collaborate on different ideas that may mean, from their point of view, an innovation.
In widely distributed user communities, innovations generally come from the effort of a single person. These innovations can be brilliant, but generally well-organized business teams will take advantage. For this reason, companies based on free software should make an effort to direct the community to an organization where innovation is encouraged, or carry it out internally with connections abroad.
In open source software, incremental innovation is the most applied. Developers are improving a product, each adding their share of innovation, but it is more difficult for them to consider a radical change to the product.
In free software communities, innovation rests solely with individual developers, but companies can innovate by sharing different visions: from the commercial area, from senior management or from the financial area. These areas can provide, and indeed need to do, a strong push to facilitate business innovation. (Although more and more free software projects are led by companies, which would alleviate this situation)
A greater number of iterations occur to obtain a finished product, due to the outsourcing of resources. It may have a cost that must be managed (repositories, mailing lists,… in short, the business information system is very important)
Networks are the best explanation of how free software communities work. The exchanges between people and organizations involved in open source software development do not follow any hierarchy, since there is no super-organization, at least explicitly, that encompasses all parties.
The importance of the 3 Cs: Create, Collaborate and Share, in innovation is important. This is already done even with suppliers, customers and even competition. You can see different companies without written agreements between them collaborating with each other. The GPL licenses would somehow compel them to do so, since they must publish their changes and improvements. In this way, the very nature of the license in a way encourages innovation based on the work of a group. At least more clearly, creation and sharing are encouraged, because perhaps it is in collaboration as a way to innovate where the greatest problems are found. They all collaborate creating the same product, but it is more than possible that each job goes in their direction, the one that interests the volunteer programmer, or the company that develops it.
