Learning from the open source movement

I argued recently that a focus on a few kinds of social enterprise - those that happen to fit an official definition, or can be used to forward a government agenda - is blinding us to a much bigger picture.

Perhaps the most striking example of this is the surprising indifference of social enterprise to another great movement of our times: the open source software movement.

Open source isn't only for computer geeks. It is the 'intellectual property wing' of social enterprise and probably, globally, its most successful aspect. About three quarters of the internet runs on open source software. But let me pick out just three inspirational areas:

Free exchange of knowledge, ideas - and business models

The open source movement has developed a new philosophy about intellectual property, maintaining that knowledge should be free – that although it is important to prevent plagiarism or passing off an inferior product as a trusted brand, to curtail the free exchange of knowledge and ideas is a disservice to society. In pharmaceuticals, this is literally a matter of life and death – or blindness. South Africa's health minister once called the high prices of lifesaving medicines 'a crime against humanity'. But this is increasingly an issue for our own NHS. One current struggle involves big business trying to prevent the licensing of Avastin – already being used with great success by doctors treating the main cause of blindness in the UK – at £50 per dose - and instead force them to use the 'very similar' but differently licensed drug Lucentis, at £750 a dose. Obviously, this sort of thing is unacceptable – but the importance of the open source movement is that it does not simply reject such approaches to intellectual property, but has built viable alternatives – real business models that outperform proprietary interests but still freely share the knowledge they embody. Viable business models that can deliver free services - something that ought to get the attention of social enterprisers engaged in health and social care. It is also relevant to social franchising.

The rewards of co-operation

Open source is based fundamentally on breaking down the divide between producers and consumers – what Karl Marx once called alienation – and replacing it with community co-operation. What open sourcing does is say to software users: here's the code, it's owned in common, if it goes wrong, or if it doesn't do something you want it to, let us know - or you fix it, we'll incorporate your 'patch' and give you credit for it. It effectively enlists tens of thousands of creative individuals and organisations – the 'community of developers' - in the production process. And this model is no longer limited to software development – there are open source projects for everything from cars to carousels.

In my last blog, I mentioned Yochai Benkler's view that it is the co-operatively networked individual and voluntary economy of 'peer production' that will win over traditional firms. In her book What's Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption, Rachel Botsman has further developed these ideas, arguing that the linked development of online networking and renewed belief in community, along with environmental concerns and questioning of an economy based on buying and selling, 'are moving us away from the top-heavy, command-and-control forms of consumerism and towards decentralised ideas based on openness, sharing and peer-to-peer collaboration.'. One example she uses is Zopa, the online network that links savers/lenders directly with borrowers, cutting out the 'big banks', increasing the savers' return to over 8% while at the same time reducing the cost of borrowing by at least 20% - and with a default rate below 1%. How can social enterprise, so intimately bound up with the idea of active community participation, ignore the emergence of such exciting new business and financing models?

Open source often takes market share

But perhaps even more importantly - the models offered by open source are not precious. Above all, it is an 'open' movement. Conventionally structured companies, individuals, public and voluntary sector bodies are all together in the 'community of developers'. Being human, there are of course conflicts – but the movement remains remarkably united by a shared fundamental philosophy that has been central to the development of the internet, and is still hugely influential in companies like Google. Above all open source software is successful – consistently taking market share from proprietary brands. I argued in my previous blog that there really isn't any difference between 'social enterprises' and, say, a passionate farmer determined to preserve old English apple varieties in the face of commercial pressures. Some interpreted this as a blanket rejection of working with big businesses. It wasn't – the work being done by some multinationals – Danone for example - and indeed social enterprise multinationals like Scott Bader – is inspirational. But while we should be open to any useful collaboration, and take on board the technical, resource and other things we sometimes lack, it is social enterprise, not big business, that really has the answers to the fundamental questions. And collaborations need to be within our own philosophical framework.

So the key lessons are to develop viable business models that can deliver free services. Such models should replace the old producer-consumer economics system with collaborative communities model that out-perform those based on greed and exploitation – of either people or natural resources – while at the same time utilise latest technology and the new social behaviours it is propagating. One of the biggest social enterprise developments this year – the miEnterprise group of CICs – will certainly engage in all of these areas.

But a questionmark remains: do we have the confidence and philosophy of shared values and ideas to gear us up to the kind of influence open source has achieved? Open source has proved strong enough to sustain useful partnerships with all kinds of organisations, including conventional businesses. Is our bigger idea – doing business to do good – really strong enough to sustain us? Is it really the heart of our self-identification as social enterprise?

Can we shrugg off the 'inward-looking sector' identity – and instead blossom into a movement that reaches out to all, on its own terms?

Geof Cox is a freelance social enterprise developer and as an associate of a number of top social enterprise consultancies, including the international social enterprise development organisation, NESsT (Non-profit enterprise and self-sutainability team).

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