SOS-ware [Strategic Open Software] Perspectives

Certain types of software play a strategic role in the development of the various aspects of organizational life. One of these roles is knowledge development that can act as a facilitator of economic diamonds. We review the characteristics of strategic software and we try to answer the question whether there can exist open software development that would be able to incorporate these characteristics. Based on this review, and on certain case studies, we present a theory, on how open software might be able to close the gaps in knowledge creation and usage - or the reverse, ie. to become a vehicle for an acceleration of this hysteresis.