How open is open source – Software and beyond

Traditionally the protection of intellectual property is regarded as a pre-condition for value capture. The rise of open source (OS) software and OStangible products, so-called open design, has challenged this understand-ing. Openness is often regarded as a dichotomous variable (open-source vs.closed-source) and it is assumed that online developer communities demandfull opening of the product’s source.In this paper we explore openness as a gradual and multi-dimensionalconcept. We conduct an Internet survey (N = 270) among participants of20 open design communities in the domain of IT hardware and consumerelectronics. We find that open design projects pursue complex strategiesshort of complete openness and that communities value openness of softwaremore highly than openness of hardware.Our findings suggest that open design companies can successfully employstrategies of partial openness to safeguard value capture without alienatingtheir developer community.