Publications

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2022
White Paper

Census II of Free and Open Source Software - Application Libraries

By: Frank Nagle, James Dana, Jennifer Hoffman, Steven Randazzo and Yanuo Zhou

Produced in partnership with Harvard Laboratory for Innovation Science (LISH) and the Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF), Census II is the second investigation into the widespread use of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). The Census II effort utilizes data... View Details

Keywords: Open Source Software; Applications and Software; Cybersecurity; Open Source Distribution

September 2023
Technical Note

Free and Open Source Software and Hardware

By: Frank Nagle

This technical note surveys the concepts of free and open source software and hardware. It introduces the concepts in general, providing a brief history of their development and numerous examples of how companies employ them in practice. Further, it identifies various... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Nonprofit Organizations; Competitive Strategy; Patents; Information Technology; Business Model; Open Source Distribution; Applications and Software; Information Technology Industry; Technology Industry

Educators

September 2, 2021
Article

The Digital Economy Runs on Open Source. Here's How to Protect It.

By: Hila Lifshitz-Assaf and Frank Nagle

Free and open source software (FOSS) is essential to much of the tech we use every day—from cars to phones to planes to the cloud. While traditionally, it was developed by an army of volunteer developers and given away for free, companies are increasingly taking a more... View Details

Keywords: Free And Open-source Software; FOSS; Open Source Distribution; Applications and Software; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Organizations; Policy; Cybersecurity

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15 Jan 2007
Research & Ideas

The Business of Free Software

think about business development and alliances. In another ironic twist, some developers who were motivated toward open-source software development in rebellion against huge... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Computer

2005
Book

Perspectives on Free and Open Source Software

By: Joe Feller, Brian Fitzgerald, Scott Hissam and Karim R. Lakhani

Keywords: Perspective; Applications and Software; Knowledge Sharing

March 2022
Article

How to Prioritize the Improvement of Open-Source Software Security

By: Frank Nagle

Keywords: Open Source Distribution; Cybersecurity; Applications and Software

March 2018 (Revised March 2019)
Case

Gender and Free Speech at Google (A)

By: Nien-hê Hsieh, Martha J. Crawford and Sarah Mehta

In August 2017, Google fired James Damore, a 28-year-old software engineer who had been employed by the company since 2013. The move came after Damore penned an internal company memo titled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber,” which posited that innate biological... View Details

Keywords: Free Speech; Representation; Diversity; Gender; Race; Human Resources; Employees; Employee Relationship Management; Recruitment; Selection and Staffing; Labor; Employment; Lawsuits and Litigation; Organizational Culture; Technology Industry; United States; California

Educators

31 Jul 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Investment Incentives in Proprietary and Open-Source Two-Sided Platforms

Keywords: by Ramon Casadesus-Masanell & Gastón Llanes

2017
Working Paper

Exploring the Relationship between Architecture Coupling and Software Vulnerabilities: A Google Chrome Case

By: Robert Lagerstrom, Carliss Y. Baldwin, Alan MacCormack, Dan Sturtevant and Lee Doolan

Employing software metrics, such as size and complexity, for predicting defects has been given a lot of attention over the years and has proven very useful. However, the few studies looking at software architecture and vulnerabilities are limited in scope and findings.... View Details

Keywords: Software; Architecture; Coupling; Vulnerabilities; Applications and Software; Complexity; Measurement and Metrics

May 2022
Article

Strengthening Digital Infrastructure: A Policy Agenda for Free and Open Source Software

By: Frank Nagle

While there is little debate that digital forces are playing an increasingly crucial role in the economy, there is limited understanding of the importance of the digital infrastructure that underlies this role. Much of the discussion around digital infrastructure has... View Details

Keywords: Open Source; Applications and Software; Policy; Infrastructure; Open Source Distribution

11 Jan 2010
Research & Ideas

Mixing Open Source and Proprietary Software Strategies

product and the competitive landscape. For example, if you have an OS competitor like Apache or the Free Software Foundation, you may not want to be so open. This is an... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Web Services

24 Feb 2020
Research & Ideas

The Hidden Vulnerabilities of Open Source Software

Commonly used free and open source software (FOSS) is one of the most significant technological trends of the decade. After all, 80-90 percent of a typical application contains... View Details

Keywords: by Frank Nagle and Jenny Hoffman; Computer

November – December 2011
Article

Competitive Strategy for Open Source Software

By: Vineet Kumar, Brett Gordon and Kannan Srinivasan

Commercial open source software (COSS) products-privately developed software based on publicly available source code-represent a rapidly growing, multibillion-dollar market. A unique aspect of competition in the COSS market is that many open source licenses require... View Details

Keywords: Applications and Software; Competitive Strategy; Product Development; Growth and Development; Markets; Motivation and Incentives; Quality; Policy; Perspective; Profit; Open Source Distribution; Emerging Markets

Article

Divide and Conquer: Competing with Free Technology under Network Effects

By: Deishin Lee and Haim Mendelson

We study how a commercial firm competes with a free open source product. The market consists of two customer segments with different preferences and is characterized by positive network effects. The commercial firm makes product and pricing decisions to maximize its... View Details

Keywords: Profit; Product Launch; Network Effects; Open Source Distribution; Adoption; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage

04 Mar 2010
Working Paper Summaries

The Determinants of Individual Performance and Collective Value in Private-Collective Software Innovation

Keywords: by Ned Gulley & Karim R. Lakhani; Video Game; Web Services

August 2014
Case

Opening the Valve: From Software to Hardware (A)

By: Ethan Bernstein, Francesca Gino and Bradley Staats

Valve, one of the world's top video game software companies, has also become an iconic example of an organization with virtually no hierarchy. A 400-person organization, Valve's unique organizational form (described in detail in the case and accompanying employee... View Details

Educators

Article

Matriarch: A Python Library for Materials Architecture

By: Tristan Giesa, Ravi Jagadeesan, David I. Spivak and Markus J. Buehler

Biological materials, such as proteins, often have a hierarchical structure ranging from basic building blocks at the nanoscale (e.g., amino acids) to assembled structures at the macroscale (e.g., fibers). Current software for materials engineering allows the user to... View Details

Keywords: Building Block; Category Theory; Hierarchical Protein Materials; Molecular Design; Open-Source Software; Structure Creation

August 2014 (Revised August 2015)
Supplement

Opening the Valve: From Software to Hardware (B)

By: Ethan Bernstein, Francesca Gino and Bradley Staats

Valve, one of the world's top video game software companies, has also become an iconic example of an organization with virtually no hierarchy. A 400-person organization, Valve's unique organizational form (described in detail in the case and accompanying employee... View Details