Chad Whitacre
See the following -
Addressing Open Source's Free Rider Problem
Nadia Eghbal, in her major report on the state of our digital infrastructure, and Jonathan Lister, in his response describing our digital ecosystem, both point to a tragedy of the commons in open source software. While some projects are sustainable, many still struggle with "a free rider problem." As Nadia puts it: "Resources are offered for free, and everybody (whether individual developer or large software company) uses them, so nobody is incentivized to contribute back, figuring that somebody else will step in"...
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How Gratipay Helps Solve the 'Free Rider' Problem
Open source has come a long way, but the "free rider" problem still exists. In a lightning talk at All Things Open, Chad Whitacre shared how his company, Gratipay, is helping companies pay for open source software. While companies like Red Hat have figured out how to make open source development sustainable, Whitacre points out that there are still big parts of the open source ecosystem that aren't sustainable. These projects are plagued by what he calls the "free rider" problem...
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When the Hacker Ethic Meets Old Ideas About Brand
Open organizations apply principles from open source software development more broadly. Existing organizations find the open approach appealing because it promises gains in productivity and efficiency—but openness may have farther-reaching consequences than we anticipate or intend. One influential set of open principles comes from Steven Levy's book about the early history of the computing revolution, Hackers. Levy lays out what he calls "the Hacker Ethic," and it begins with "the Hands-On Imperative"...
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