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Endorsements

Goldman and Gabriel have given us the gift of a very valuable and interesting book! They build on the central observation that innovation is a distributed process. They point out that traditional development practices are not well-adapted to managing or profiting from distributed innovation. They then explain how open source software development practices can offer a better way for firms to manage innovation. An exciting future is made clear!

--Eric von Hippel,

Professor and Head, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group, MIT Sloan School of Management

Many people have had an intuition that businesses outside the software industry can benefit from Open Source methods, but Ron Goldman and Richard Gabriel actually show us how it's done. As they demonstrate, not only are most of the good ideas elsewhere, but current business imperatives of secrecy and control prevent firms from taking advantage of those external innovations. Gabriel and Goldman show how Open Source methods offer a way to get at that value, by helping businesses make innovation a targeted activity rather than a scattershot one, by opening up and participating in a community of people who think differently than you do.

--Clay Shirky,

Interactive Telecommunications Program, NYU

"IHE" is a comprehensive and insightful look at what makes Open Source communities actually work. It makes a compelling case for why this phenomenon is sustainable: Rather than simply being the work of a handful of smart kids with time to kill, Open Source communities involve participants from a wide range of skill sets and goals, brought together by a common problem to solve, and a Quaker-style reverence for consensus. The breadth of the material is also impressive--from describing the baseline development tools these communities need, to how to build an ethical and scalable business upon Open Source underpinnings. Also made clear is the historic interdependency between the principles of open information and transparency, invention, and the scientific process. Goldman and Gabriel succeed in covering all the important aspects of this phenomenon, while also successfully capturing the intangible benefits that drive so much of the passion for Open Source.

--Brian Behlendorf,

CTO, CollabNet, and Director, Apache Software Foundation

To business people, open source is simultaneously thrilling and terrifying: it is counterintuitive, yet completely natural. Gabriel and Goldman, masters at interpreting frameworks from one domain in new domains, explain here in calm, concise language how business people can go about implementing open source strategies. If you think there's a movement afoot, as I do, and you want to get onboard--read this book.

--Jerry Michalski,

Founder, Sociate