Chromium as a tool of logistical power: A material political economy of open-source

Abstract

Open-source software is used by almost all technology companies and has become an integral part of the technical infrastructure of digital capitalism. Generally, developers of open-source software have been viewed as a social movement at odds with the capitalist profit motive. This idealized view has been challenged as companies have made significant investments in open-source since the early 2000s. Current research frames corporate participation in open-source as fundamentally extractive in nature, failing to account for these sizable investments. Through a historical analysis of Google's Chromium browser project, we provide another way to understand corporate participation in open-source. This article takes a material political economic approach to argue that control of open-source projects can grant companies logistical power that enables them to influence standards and shape the Internet as an infrastructure for digital capitalism.