Hi guys, I did my homework assignment this week on open source and peer production. In my opinion open source tends to create massive peer production. This is a model I came up with to explain this:
Intention to use/User –> Contributions –> Benefits –> User Satisfaction and then back again to intention to use.
To get a better understanding I will provide you 2 examples.
Example 1 (Mozilla Firefox):
Mozilla Firefox is an open source browser that is gaining a lot market share in a field dominated by Microsoft internet explorer. Firefox is appropriating a lot of these market shares because it plays better on some defaults and bugs.
Example 2 (PHP(Hypertext Preprocessor)):
PHP is a server-side scripting language designed for web development but also used as a general-purpose programming language. When asking programmers why they use PHP nowadays so often instead of other programming tools they simply answer that it is much easier to use.
To sum up open source in combination with peer production created success for these two companies. Who else can optimize a product than the one that uses that product? The consumers use the program –> adjusts it –> and then enjoy it!
