‘Open source software is overcoming the barriers of technological oligopoly and unleashing waves of new applications and development breakthroughs, in an increasing virtuous circle created by thousands of free programmers networked around the world.’ (Castells 2004 p.10). Update this analysis today and we see evidence of the numbers of open source innovators increasing from the thousands to the millions and companies like Apple leveraging the open source movement by crafting a core business in products that serve as a medium for information and communication.
Castells idea of information becoming ‘…an independent source of productivity and power (Dijk 2006 p.20) has proven true with new and evolving markets in information and communication technologies. The Apple mobile device range including the ipod, ipad and iphone is a response to store, generate and remediate greater quantities of information. However it is the networking community of producers and users – not on the Apple payroll - that sustains the products. Where today’s networked society provides a somewhat ‘free’ level of access to information created by networked contributors, it can only do so (in an online environment) by way of a device. Apple obviously understands that the modern technique in achieving a critical mass uptake of their product is by adopting an open source approach in regards to developing applications (instructions can be found on their website). This is a reversal in the capitalist approach where once code was secured in-house and remained confidential.
In an environment where the main source of ‘…productivity and competitiveness are innovation, knowledge generation and information processing…’(Capra 2002 p.119), Apple provides an interesting case study as a business in assembling devices that leverage the contributing nature of this networking, informational orientated, digital society.
References
Capra, Fritjof (2002) ‘The networks of global capitalism’ in The hidden connections, London: Flamingo, p.119
Castells, Manuel (2001) ‘Virtual communities or network society?’ in The Internet Galaxy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p.10
Dijk, Jan van (2006) The network society: social aspects of new media, London; Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage
