So the story that most people know is the story of free or open source software. This is market share of Apache web server-
-one of the critical applications in web based communications. In 1995, two groups of people said wow, this is really important, the web! We need a much better web server! One was a motley collection of volunteers who just decided you know, we really need this, we should write one, and what are we going to do with what — well, we’re gonna share it! And other people will be able to develop it. The other was Microsoft. Now if I told you that 10 years later, the motley crew of people who didn’t control anything that they produced acquired 20% of the market and was the red line (refers to second largest share on graph), it would be amazing! Right? Think of it in minivans. A group of automobile engineers on their weekends are competing with Toyota. Right?
But in fact, of course, the story is it’s the 70% (refers to top blue line), including the major e-commerce site — 70% of a critical application on which web based communications and applications work is produced in this form in direct competition with Microsoft, not in a side issue — in a central strategic decision to try to capture a component of the net.
This got me curious. How does this happen? Is it really just a motley crew, a group of random people drawn together in the interest of building a Web Server? Well, it may have started that way but it no longer is. They now operate under what is called a meritocracy. They call this government by merit where newcomers are considered as volunteers who are looking to help rather than people who are coming to steal power.
Being no conservative resource at stake (money, energy, time), the group was happy to have new people coming in and help, they were only filtering the people that they believed committed enough for the task and matched the human attitudes required to work well with others, especially in disagreement.
Meritocracy enables various roles: user, developer, committer, PMC Member, PMC Chair, and ASF Chair. Anyone can rise in status and reputation by adhering to the “Apache Way”.
· collaborative software development
· commercial-friendly standard license
· consistently high quality software
· respectful, honest, technical-based interaction
· faithful implementation of standards
· security as a mandatory feature
There are no conservative resources (money, time, energy) at stake. People can give as little or as much as they like. Here is a fascinating model of collaborative production that centers upon reputation and recognition. This does not mean that those who participate cannot profit from their reputation within the Apache organization. Many do. That profit however, is extraneous to the workings of the Apache Software Foundation itself.
Can this approach be applied to other digital media? I think so. Of course there may be variations but the creation of a culture that is narrowly focused upon a particular outcome can be driven by cooperation and recognition. Wikipedia is certainly an example of this. Slashdot, one of the Webs oldest blogs is regulated by a system that thrives on participant reputation. Could a movie be produced under this model? Could news be published? How about books? All yes, I think.
And yet in the face of compelling evidence, organizations like the Philadelphia Enquirer cling to the old business model. Old ways die hard. 150 years of an industrial information economy will not be supplanted by a digital information economy over night. There are conservative resources, particularly money, at stake. For those who refuse to see reality, the outcome will be irrelevance. But that’s ok, there will always be a place for them to begin within an area that interests them as a user.
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2 Comments, Comment or Ping
Brook Ellingwood
Interesting ideas. The challenge comes in applying judgments of merit to media output.
For example, the traditional news media fells threatened by individual hobbyist bloggers. One of the most prolific news bloggers I follow provides a great deal of content about my part of town that I find very useful. But how do I know what information the blogger chose to leave out?
Recently the blog featured a report on two traffic accidents, complete with pictures. Were these traffic accidents more newsworthy than any other accidents in the neighborhood, or were they reported on simply because the blogger had pictures of them and wanted to share? I have no way of knowing, and in that sense I’m as blind about this particular information source’s omissions, biases, and flaws as I am about any traditional media outlet’s.
In an environment where anyone can publish anything, and there is no single path of access to what they publish, how can meritocratic quality be determined? In Open Source it’s a process of source code control and review: the code is managed through a tree model, in which the trunk is the official release, and individuals working on it copy the project to their own branches to work on. When they submit branch code back to the trunk, it gets reviewed and tested for bugs before it can become part of the official release.
Information is different from code. There is no source control software for information, although the Wiki model does provide some loose management processes. Buggy information can, and does, spread like wildfire even if those who have better information try to stamp it out. I’m sure we can all think of situations in which buggy information has had worse effects than buggy software ever has.
If we want to abstract the Open Source software development model to digital media, do we need a means of information source control, to distinguish reviewed and tested information from information that’s experimental or otherwise under development? Or is that counter-productive and stifling?
On a tangent, something to keep in mind when talking about Open Source as a recent phenomenon is how the desktop computing revolution was driven by computer hobbyists back in the 1970s. Back then, most programmers were distributing their work using a traditional intellectual property model (which was frequently unenforceable), but there was a clear parallel in that a lot of intellectual energy was being created during evenings and weekends.
Even as the innovation of that time led to a crisis at IBM and other established computing companies, it also made possible the emergence of new powerhouses, such as Microsoft and Apple. With the Internet making worldwide collaboration on software feasible, Open Source projects can be seen as an outgrowth of the in-person User Group meetings where the early desktop hobbyists shared ideas, then went home to implement them on individual projects. Now, the implementation happens collaboratively in real time on the code itself, and monetizing the output (if it happens at all) comes through offering services rather than the IP copyright model. The result is an amazing creative boom happening outside of the control of the major companies in the industry, who then scramble to keep up.
In writing this I’m reminded of how the development of the Hollywood film industry was fueled to some extent by its remoteness from Thomas Edison’s New Jersey headquarters, making it harder for Edison to enforce his patents on movie-making equipment. In the end, Edison and his associates were ruled a monopoly and lost out on the motion picture boom. I’d be curious what other emerging media and technologies have followed similar patterns. Could It be a repeating lesson that the majority of business leaders never quite learns?
Aug 10th, 2008
hrhmedia
Great post Mark. This is a strong foundation for your independent study class this Fall.
Aug 11th, 2008
Reply to “The Power Shift Continues”