Traditionally the protection of intellectual property is regarded as a pre-
condition for value capture. The rise of open source (OS) software and OS
tangible products, so-called open design, has challenged this understanding. Openness is often regarded as a dichotomous variable (open-source vs.
closed-source) and it is assumed that online developer communities demand
full opening of the product’s source.
In this paper we explore openness as a gradual and multi-dimensional
concept. We conduct an Internet survey (N = 270) among participants of
20 open design communities in the domain of IT hardware and consumer
electronics. We find that open design projects pursue complex strategies
short of complete openness and that communities value openness of software
more highly than openness of hardware.
Our findings suggest that open design companies can successfully employ
strategies of partial openness to safeguard value capture without alienating
their developer community.