Although Krzysztof Klincewicz, a researcher at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, attempted to define “innovation,” his argument that open-source projects should be promoted more extensively requires more examination, said IDC analyst Dan Kusnetzky. “What is innovation?” he asked.
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 A researcher at the Tokyo Institute of Technology has released a paper addressing what he calls the “ongoing debate” about the innovativeness of open-source projects.After evaluating 500 active projects registered at SourceForge.net, Krzysztof Klincewicz attempted to distinguish each project in terms of its level of innovation. He looked at technology and platform modifications, radical inventions, and marketing innovations.Klincewicz found that only five of the projects could be classified as technological breakthroughs, but he also pointed out in his research that this could be attributed to a lack of “marketing” within the open-source community.Seek and FindEspecially notable in Klincewicz’s report is that all of the “radically innovative” projects were started in the 1999 to 2001 time frame, without a single project classified as such since that time.In response to what he sees as limited marketing in terms of innovation, Klincewicz proposed that developers look to commercial technology for a better understanding of how to promote their projects.Klincewicz noted that it might be beneficial for developers to seek “the establishment of an institution of ‘idea brokers,’ playing roles corresponding to venture capitalists in the commercial software domain.”The problem in the open-source community is not the flow of ideas, or input into new product development, he noted, but the ability to promote those ideas.”While open-source software developers have excellent tools for software engineering, technical-support groups and mechanisms, stimulating code reuse to shorten development cycles, they lack efficient project-promotion frameworks,” he wrote.Measure for MeasureAlthough Klincewicz attempted to define “innovation,” his argument that open-source projects should be promoted requires more examination, said IDC analyst Dan Kusnetzky.”What is innovation?” he asked. “If you look at what’s being developed, it’s building on past developments. Innovation is a slippery concept, especially when you’re talking about technology.”Definitions aside, even if open source does falter in innovation, Kusnetzky noted that this should not be seen as negative.”Open source is focused on the needs of developers,” he said. “It’s not one group marketing to another, it’s a group of people saying let’s solve these problems together. If they were trying to expand their market base, that would require more innovation.” |
