Editorial Open Source Sustainability (January 2013).docVIP

Technology Innovation Management Review January 2013 Editorial: Open Source Sustainability Chris McPhee, Editor-in-Chief Maha Shaikh, Guest Editor From the Editor-in-Chief From the Guest Editor Welcome to the January 2013 issue of the Technology In- novation Management Review. This months editorial theme is Open Source Sustainability. It is my pleasure to welcome our guest editor for this issue, Maha Shaikh, Assistant Professor of Information Systems at Warwick Business School in the United Kingdom, who has as- sembled a diverse line up of authors to offer their per- spectives on the sustainability and governance of open source software. The theme of this issue was triggered by a discussion with Daniel Curto-Millet (a doctoral student and one of the authors in this issue), who is particularly interested in Elinor Ostrom’s work in relation to sustainability (/pcxroc) and how it is applicable to open source software. My own research more recently has made me very curious about the dimensions and condi- tions necessary to sustain an open source community, project, and ecosystem. As always, we welcome your feedback, articles, and sug- gestions for future themes. We hope you enjoy this issue of the TIM Review and will share your comments on- line. Please also feel free to contact us (timreview.ca/ contact) directly with feedback or article submissions. The idea of sustainability, though borrowed from natur- al resource management, is surprisingly applicable to open source ecosystem sustainability. The definition of sustainability that resonated the most with my under- standing of open source was provided by Repetto (1986; /afrmww9), and I have amended it slightly to make it sensible for open source: Chris McPhee Editor-in-Chief Open source sustainability is the recognition and drive to manage all assets, and r