Are You Open?. An Investigation of the Concept of Openness for Knowledge and Innovation

This paper investigates the meaning and the importance of the concept of openness for knowledge and innovation. We propose two definitions of openness for a piece of knowledge, a weak one and a strong one. The common point between the two is that they both emphasize the centrality of the conditions of access: a piece of knowledge is open if it is made available to all under conditions that are non-discriminatory and reasonable. Our definition thus stresses the difference between openness and gratuity: a piece of knowledge can be open even though it is not free of charge. Then, we show that this definition of openness enables us to distinguish open innovation à la Chesbrough [2003], which does not fit it, from collective invention (Allen [1983]; Nuvolari, [2004]) and more generally open source models of knowledge production, which do. We conclude with the implications of this work for innovation practitioners and policy makers.