How do software firms, operating in a for-profit context, manage their relationships with the external knowledge developed in the very different framework of the free open source software movement and its communities?

The authors describe the rapprochements involved via four case studies (MySQL, Cendio, Roxen and SOT) and trace the ways in which the firms had to adapt the structure of their business plans. Three themes for such relationships are developed – accessing, aligning and assimilating – together with an examination of the tactics involved and their positive and negative consequences.

The authors note the advantages and difficulties firms experience in working with open source communities (many of which they themselves started), and discuss: copyright problems; whether communities are marketing devices or much more; and the challenge of keeping communities vital. They also note the de facto division of labour that can result, with communities doing the creative development work, leaving firms with the more prosaic tasks of validating and checking software for robustness and searching for possible market applications.

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