Hybrid innovation: The dynamics of collaboration between the FLOSS community and corporations

Unlike innovation based on a strong professional culture involving close collaboration between professionals in academia and/or corporations, the current Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) development entails a global knowledge network, which consists of 1) a heterogeneous community of individuals and organizations who do not necessarily have professional backgrounds in computer science but have developed the competency to understand programming and working in a public domain; 2) corporations. This paper describes the operation of the hybrid form of developing and implementing software, and also identifies several key factors shaping the collaboration between FLOSS firms and the community. She received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of York (UK) in 2004. Her Ph.D. research investigated the heterogeneity and contingency in the Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) social worlds, which is based on a constellation of hacking practices, from the sociological perspective. Her principal research interests center on FLOSS studies, Science and Technology Studies (STS), virtual communities and knowledge management.