The Creative Trade Off Governance, Conflict, And Their Impact On Innovation In Open Source Software

Software development has always been fueled by creativity but today, efficiency metrics, process-heavy methods, and the rise of AI now often box that creativity out. While developers are drawn to solving tough problems, modern practices can unintentionally prioritize small tweaks over bold breakthroughs. This tension risks limiting not just individual potential, but open source’s ability to drive meaningful innovation. In this talk, we dive into how development approaches shape creativity at the project level, drawing from a study of 40 open source projects, over 10,000 releases, and interviews with developers across corporate and community-run efforts. Using multi-level creativity theories, we unpack how individual actions, team interactions, and project governance can either spark or stifle innovative outcomes. Our research challenges the myth of the lone “rockstar” developer and highlights the crucial role of social interactions within the open source community— especially during review stages such as pull requests and code reviews—in turning creative ideas into real-world innovations. We show how cognitive conflict and governance models impact creative outcomes and offer strategies for building more innovative, collaborative open source projects and communities. If we want open source to keep leading the way, we need development practices that empower creativity, not constrain it. Let’s rethink how we build and unlock a more radical future for open source software.