Building an Understanding of How Winning Products Emerge When Open and Proprietary Products Coexist: Evidence from the Reprap Community

Online innovation communities have altered the nature of collaborative innovation. Within these communities, coexistence of open and closed source offerings is becoming commonplace, though potential diffusion and product advantages from each form are not well understood. Patterns of derivative innovation within these communities affect designers' focus; thus, this work is grounded in the attention‐based view. Beyond open vs. closed source development, we find that the presence of sibling designs (designs based on the same source material) and self‐remix (iteration on material by the same designer) have notable diffusion and product effects. Diffusion effects are investigated using 354 co‐existing open and closed source 3D printers from the RepRap community, while a subset of these printers is used for an analysis of key product attributes: value and ease of use. While previous researchers have argued for an early stage open source diffusion advantage, this is not observed here. However, customers perceive open source products to have value advantages, while closed source offerings are easier to use. Sibling designs have a diffusion advantage, particularly early on. Self‐remixes have both diffusion and product advantages. By better understanding these contextual elements of derivative innovation, designers' attention can be shaped to achieve desired outcomes.