Talk by Steven Weber - author of "The Success of Open Source"

Updated 18 May 2012

I reviewed Steven Weber's "The Success of Open Source" in Fortnightly Mailing Number 60 in December 2005. I also included an interesting extract from the final chapter of the book summarising what Weber thinks are the circumstances in which an open source process is likely to be effective (not just in software production). [You may also be interested in this a "proper" review of the book in LRB by Lawrence Lessig - added 18 May 2012.]

Here is .mov file with a witty talk by Weber - whose voice is disconcertingly similar to Woody Allen's - to students on Stanford University's Literacy of Cooperation course, in Winter 2005. The talk is wide-ranging, with, towards the end, an interesting excursion concerning the political economy of drug development in the pharmaceutical industry, and the parallels between drug development and software development, with an interesting emphasis on patents. If the talk encourages you to read the book, it will have done its job. Order book from Amazon.

Whilst re-listening to the talk I came across a complete set of 9 edited videos of the Literacy of Cooperation lectures [18 May 2012 - link now dead], on Howard Reingold's SmartMobs web site.