Understanding Coopetition in the Open-Source Arena: The Cases of WebKit and OpenStack

Abstract

In an era of software crisis, the move of firms towards distributed software development teams is being challenged by emerging collaboration issues. On this matter, the open-source phenomenon may shed some light, as successful cases on distributed collaboration in the open-source community have been recurrently reported. In our research we explore collaboration networks in the WebKit and OpenStack high-networked open-source projects, by mining their source-code version-control-systems data with Social Network Analysis (SNA). Our approach allows us to observe how key events in the industry affect open-source collaboration networks over time. With our findings, we highlight the explanatory power from network visualizations capturing the collaborative dynamics of high-networked software projects over time. Moreover, we argue that competing companies that sell similar products in the same market, can collaborate in the open-source community while publicly manifesting intense rivalry (e.g. Apple vs Samsung patent-wars). After integrating our findings with the current body of theoretical knowledge in management strategy, economics, strategic alliances and coopetition, we propose the novel notion of open-coopetition, where rival firms collaborate with competitors in the open-source community. We argue that classical coopetition management theories do not fully explain the competitive and collaborative issues that are simultaneously present and interconnected in the WebKit and OpenStack open-source communities. We propose the development of the novel open-coopetition theory for a better understanding on how rival-firms collaborate with competitors by open-source manners.