Generative Internet Clusters

Generative Internet Clusters Innovation and the Evolution of the Internet Economy Project outline from GI.ifi@uio.no Author Ole Hanseth - I think the next century will be the century of complexity, Stephen Hawkins in 2000 1. The evolving Internet economy/ecology The key feature of the Internet has been the amount of innovations continuously emerging both related to its core technologies and ways of using it. An obvious consequence of this amount of innovations is, of course, the fact that the Internet is very different in important ways today compared to what it was previously. And this changing nature of the Internet has impacts on how, what kinds of, and amount of innovations that will emerge in the future. Important changes in the Internet ecology includes Opportunities for criminal activities for those who are interested and security threats for ordinary users New business models and alliances which implies that the overall architecture of the Internet is changing 1

Increased number and heterogeneity among Internet Service Providers (Content Delivery Networks, Eyeballs, ) which implies that the traditional organizational and technological arrangements for data transfer (peering and transit) is challenged The emergence of clusters The society is on all levels becoming dependent of the Internet and rapidly increasingly so which implies increased individual and societal vulnerability related to Internet breakdowns These changes generates demands for more changes for instance related to Implementation of security and quality of service mechanisms in the core network which may have significant negative impact on the Internet s architecture New models for Internet governance and regulation to sustain competition as well as security New architecture to enable future innovations while maintaining Internet s sustainability and resilience... 2. Clusters and clustering All this implies that the context and conditions for innovations related to the Internet is changing. Based on this we will take clusters and clustering processes as our starting points. Ongoing clustering processes, through which groups of actors integrate their networks, platforms, and services at the technological level and establish closer collaborative arrangements on the organizational level, seems to accelerate. Based on this we believe that it will be fruitful to look at 2

the Internet as changing from a two layer to a three layer structure. The two layer model sees the Internet as composed of Internet Service Providers (from the small local up to the big global ones linked together in a hierarchical structure) one the first layer and the whole Internet on the second. The three layer model includes an additional one in between this: clusters. So the overall Internet is then seen as ecology of clusters. Future competition and data exchange arrangements will then be related to clusters rather than individual ISPs. Regarding innovation, we will then focus on innovation on all three levels but with a focus on how clusters innovate, compare them, and identify the characteristics that separates the most innovative clusters from the less innovative ones. 3. Innovation and infrastructures The research literature makes several distinctions between various kinds of innovations: radical versus incremental innovations, component versus architectural innovations, product versus service innovations, etc. We believe that it is crucial to identify yet another unique domain of innovations: Infrastructural innovations, i.e. the innovation processes related to the development of new infrastructures. In this case we focus on one kind of infrastructures information infrastructures. Infrastructures, just like systems, come in a nested structure, i.e. one infrastructure may be composed of other infrastructures recursively. Infrastructures are socio-material (or sociotechnical) including technological and material components as well as human, political, legal, and organizational ones. According to the three layer model presented above we will focus on three kinds of infrastructures: individual ISPs and other kinds of SPs, clusters, and the overall Internet. The Internet is unique among infrastructures when in comes to speed and breath of innovations. This can partly be explained by the fact that the Internet is digital rather than physical. But we need a more elaborate understanding of how innovations have and are emerging related to the Internet. And this issue has been addressed by a number of scholars, and new models or theories of 3

innovations have been proposed based on this like Chesbrough s theory of Open Innovations and Tuomi s of Networks of Innovation. Others have focused more specifically on the Internet. This includes in particular discussions among some cyberlaw scholars discussing regulation of cyberspace. An issue of interest for some of these has been how to regulate cyberspace or the Internet so that unwanted use (for instance distribution of child pornography and music, and film and software piracy) is constrained at the same time as the qualities of the Internet that has made it so successful is maintained. The qualities of the Internet that these scholars have identified as important to maintain is exactly the speed and scope of innovations that the Internet has allowed and triggered regarding both the Internet itself and its use. We will here introduce three cyberlaw scholars and the aspects of the Internet they have highlighted and discussed. 3.1. End-to-end architectures, programmable terminals, generativity The end-to-end architecture is widely held to be a prime and distinguishing feature of the Internet compared to traditional telecommunication (Saltzer et al. 1984; Abbate 1994, 1999). This means that the functionality ( intelligence ) of the overall network is located in the ends, its terminals (i.e. computers in the Internet case), as opposed to the traditional telecom architecture where the functionality was located in the network. The end-to-end architecture made the Internet extremely flexible: Anybody having a computer could develop and provide a new service. Abbate (1998) also illustrates how the successful development of Internet services has been based on an approach where each layer of services established served as a platform for experimental development of the next layer. The importance of the end-to-end architecture has also been forcefully argued by Lawrence Lessig (2001) in debates about issues like network neutrality. He has argued that if network neutrality is not maintained, the Internet s architecture will not be based on the end-2-end principle any more and, further, that this will have serious negative impact on future Internet innovations. 4

Yochai Benkler (2006) develop this end-to-end argument one step further by underscoring the mutual dependence of the end-to-end architecture of the network and (easily) programmable terminals in terms of general purpose computers. Benkler (ibid.) makes a conceptual contrast between programmable computers and appliances. An appliance is a device with a limited and well defined set of functions which (normally) cannot be modified after the users have bought it. Typical examples include washing machines, radios, phones (traditional ones, at least). Most such devices have computers inside, but their software cannot (normally at least) be modified by its users. Benkler argues that many proposed arrangements for improving Internet security, like various models and implementations of trusted computing will not only do harm to the Internet s architecture but, may be even more importantly, the programmability of its terminals (i.e. computers connected). Benkler argues that a combination of certain proposed security mechanisms would do substantial harm to both (architecture and programmability) and effectively turn the whole Internet into an appliance and block almost all future innovations. Benkler has combined his analysis of the role of the Internet s architecture and programmability with an analysis of its open source licensing policy and distributed and loosely connected organizing into a theory of what he calls social production name Commons Based Peer Production (CBPP) which can very well be seen as an innovation theory. In this he explores the conditions for CBPP to work successfully. Among these is the granularity of the technologies modules. Jonathan Zittrain (2006) also sees Internet in contrast to appliances and develops the Lessig/Benkler argument yet one step further by means of the concept of generative technology. Generativity is 5

the essential quality animating the trajectory of information technology innovation. (ibid., p. 1980). It denotes a technology s overall capacity to produce unprompted change driven by large, varied, and uncoordinated audiences (ibid.). Zittrain argues that the grid of PCs connected by the Internet has developed in such a way that it is consummately generative. Zittrain defines generativity more detailed as a function of a technology s capacity for leverage across a range of tasks, adaptability to a range of different tasks, ease of mastery, and accessibility. Leverage describes the extent to which these objects enable valuable accomplishments that otherwise would be either impossible or not worth the effort to achieve. Adaptability refers to the breath of a technology s use without change and the readiness with which it might be modified to broaden its range of uses. A technology s ease of mastery reflects how easy it is for broad audiences to adopt and adapt it: how much skill is necessary to make use of its leverage for tasks they care about, regardless of whether the technology was designed with those tasks in mind. Accessibility the more readily people can come to use and control a technology, along with what information might be required to master it, the more accessible the technology is. 3.2. The end of end-to-end? Even though the Internet s end-to-end architecture has contributed significantly to the net s successful evolution, its future is uncertain. The Internet s growth has generated new demands. For instance, security, illegal distribution of spam, music and child pornography has become major 6

issues. Many actors are arguing that these issues demand technological mechanisms (filters and security technologies like trusted computing) to be put into the net. Network providers are also arguing that they have to implement quality of service mechanisms to guarantee better services for those who are willing to pay for it to afford further expansion of their bandwidth capacities. Scholars like Benkler (2006), David (2005), Lemley and Lessig (2000), Wu (2010) and Zittrain (2006) are worried that that the proposals for addressing these issues will destroy the end-to-end architecture and turn the Internet into an appliance and dramatically reduce the rate of innovations related to the Internet in the future. Other researchers are arguing that the Internet s architecture has to change to allow further growth (Clark et al 2002, 2003; Faratin et al. 2008). This relates to tussles in cyberspace emerging out of the growth in number and variety of Internet Service Providers. This makes their relationships complex and the conditions for sustainable and coordinated growth of the Internet are eroding. A new architecture is also considered necessary to maintain, or preferably enhance, the Internet s resilience. For an extensive description of the Internet s current ecology and a discussion of its resilience see (Trimintzios et al. 2001). 3.3. Strategic architecting and architectural control points. Jason Woodward (2006) has also addressed the role of technological architectures related to the growing complexities of the contemporary ICT field. He has focused more on PC and software companies and identifies ways in which actors may related strategically towards the design of architectures, i.e. what he calls strategic architecting. For instance, he demonstrates how actors may design an architecture in a way so that they can control the evolution of the whole ecology if the control one single component, i.e. designing what he calls architectural control points. 7

4. Research questions and aims Our research will focus on clusters and clustering processes by seeing clusters as evolving information infrastructures where their evolution is driven by innovation processes. We will in particular look at the role played by the architectures (and other technological aspects) of the clusters in the way they are linked non-technological elements like legal artefacts and organizational, economic and political elements. We will do so bay using a combination of Zittrain s concept of Generative Technology and Benkler s concept of Commons Based Peer Production as our main theoretical lens. Our research questions are 1. What are the key elements driving clustering processes? 2. What distinguishes a generative cluster from a less generative one? 3. How are ongoing clustering processes changing the competition between actors in the Internet economy? 4. How are clusters competing and how is this competition shaping their evolution as well as the development of the whole Internet 5. How is clustering changing the Internet s architecture and how is this shaping future innovation processes as well as the overall Internet and its resilience and sustainability 6. How should the Internet s architecture change to enable future innovations and maintain sustainability? 5. Research design and methodology Our research will primarily be based on case studies of clusters. We will look at different kinds of clusters. In the early phase of the projects we will concentrate on clusters related to cloud computing. The overall approach will be exploratory in the sense that we will start by identifying 8

and looking into a few clusters starting from specific actors. Such actors could be providers of cloud based services like Visma, user organizations like DnBNOR, basic cloud service providers like Amazon, Google, or HP, etc. In the very first phase (i.e. now) we will trace a cluster starting with Visma. Our main resource in the project will be a postdoc. We are currently in contact with a couple of excellent candidates. In addition, Gisle Hannemyr, Ole Hanseth and a number of master students will be involved. At the moment two enthusiastic students have expressed their strong interest in this and will start immediately. We will try to recruit a few more as soon as possible. References and litterature Abbate, J.: The Internet Challenge: Conflict and Compromise in Computer Networking. In Summerton, J (Ed) Changing large technical systems. Boulder: Westview Press, pp. 193-210, 1994 Abbate, J. Inventing the Internet. MIT Press, 1999. Aanestad, M., Jensen, T.B. Building nation-wide information infrastructures in healthcare through modular implementation strategies. J. Strateg. Inform. Syst. (2011), doi:10.1016/j.jsis.2011.03.006 Arthur, W. B. The Nature of Technology. What It is and How it Evolves. Penguin Books, 2009. Benkler, Y. 2006. The Wealth of Networks. How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. Yale University Press, 2006. Clark, D. D., Sollins, K., Wroclawski, J., and Braden, R.Tussle in Cyberspace: Defining Tomorrow s Internet. SIGCOMM 02, August 19-23, 2002, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. Clark, D. D., Sollins, K., Wroclawski, J., and Faber, T. Addressing Reality: An Architectural Response to Real-World Demands on the Evolving Internet. ACM SIGCOMM 2003 Workshops, August 25&27, 2003, Karlsruhe, Germany. David, Paul A. 2005. "The Beginnings and Prospective Ending of End-to-End : An Evolutionary Perspective on the Internet s Architecture." Industrial Organization 0502012, Economics Working Paper Archive EconWPA. DeLanda, M. (2006). A New Philosophy of Society. London, Continuum. Edwards, P. N., S. J. Jackson, G. C. Bowker, C. P. Knobel. 2007. Understanding infrastructure: Dynamics, tensions, and design. Report, History and Theory of Infrastructure: Lessons for New Scientific Cyberinfrastructures. Workshop Report, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/49353 Edwards, Paul N.; Bowker, Geoffrey C.; Jackson, Steven J.; and Williams, Robin (2009) "Introduction: An Agenda for Infrastructure 9

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