From open source software and open innovation to open manufacturing

Open source software has achieved acceptable success since its emergence in early 1980s. The open concept model soon drew public attention and researchers started to explore the approach to extend the model from software to the non-software field. This paper studies several cases of open source software, open innovation and open manufacturing, to qualitatively investigate how the open model works under different scenarios: initially in a pure immaterial field of open source software, then as an immaterial part of coupled immaterial and material flows of co-design in open innovation, and finally in synchronized immaterial and material flows of open manufacturing. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013