It`s about fostering creativity and challenging the status quo.

Why would a professional political scientist be interested in the open-source movement? For Steven Weber, a professor of political science and director of the Institute of International Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, it was the chance to investigate a technological issue that had what he saw as political ramifications.

Better yet, he observes, “The best part of it for a researcher – it`s really profoundly, astoundingly wonderful – is that your data is all archived. It`s like having access to every classified document you could ever imagine.” How does Weber define open source? In the introduction to his book The Success of Open Source (Harvard University Press, 2004), he writes, “Open source is an experiment in social organisation for production around a distinctive notion of property.”