Not Invented Here

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Not Invented Here (NIH) is a term used to describe a persistent sociological, Corporate culture or institutional culture that avoids using already existing products, research or knowledge because of its different origins. It is normally used in a pejorative sense.

As a sociological phenomenon, "Not Invented Here" syndrome is manifested as an unwillingness to adopt an idea or product because it originates from another culture, a form of nationalism.

Usage in computing The computer industry has seen many examples of Not Invented Here syndrome.

For example, during the evolution of Mac OS through Mac OS 9 many user interface innovations found in other operating systems weren't adopted simply because they went against, or were not discussed in, Apple's original human interface guidelines. These critics say that this was an example of Apple irrationally rejecting any change not invented by themselves. Apple's long-held single-button mouse philosophy is arguably one example (or was until they introduced Apple Mighty Mouse, at least).

Another example was the difficulty that early British, and Japanese home computer manufacturers had to get the same acceptance for their products they had in their own country. For example the Timex Sinclair 2068 (an improved version of the British Sinclair Spectrum) almost got no attention, while in Britain the Sinclair Spectrum became hugely successful. Similarly the Japanese/Dutch MSX home computer standard became successful in many countries, except in countries that produced competing systems, Britain and the USA. The opposite was also true. British and American home computers got no foothold in Japan. In these cases perhaps both the "Not invented here", and the "invented here" syndromes were at work.

In the free software community Many in the free software / open source community have been accused of demonstrating the NIH syndrome because at any one time, there can be several programmers and/or groups working on different projects that, in effect, accomplish the same things as an existing solution. When a new program is written for task A because all existing programs that accomplish task A are not free, this is not NIH; but when it is done out of reasons that are not purely technical or legal, then it is referred to as "reinventing the wheel".

Reasons to reinvent a program can include pride, ignorance, discontent with some aspect of the existing solution, or simply the desire to create for creation's sake. These traits are in no way particularly specific to open source programmers; many programmers of proprietary software exhibit them as well.

The open source community may initially seek to provide the needed alternative to some fully or partially closed source implementation. However, later this closed implementation may also be released under an open source license, resulting in two competing open source projects. Examples of such situations could be Apache Velocity and WebMacro or, on a larger scale, KDE and GNOME. In other cases, two projects that can be classified as both free and open source just pick incompatible licenses (like GNU Classpath and Apache Harmony until the advent of GPLv3).

In Corporate IT NIH can be common in the corporate world of Information Technology, and must be compared with technology available at the time.

NIH syndrome in academia In academic environments, the motivation for the NIH effect is twofold: first, resources from student workers are often paid in a lump sum (as a stipend, scholarship, or fixed salary) resulting in no variable increase in pay for more requested work; and second, the drive for publication at some institutions may drive repetition of work done at other institutions or in industry so that the researcher (and institution) may publish about their (repeated) work.

The quality of academic products developed out the NIH effect is widely varied, mostly for the aforementioned reasons.

Usage in the military Some observers have suggested that the need to keep designers and bureaucrats in work plays an important part in decisions that prefer in-country work. *Katz & Allen, Investigating the Not Invented Here (NIH) Syndrome: a look at the performance, tenure and communication patterns of 50 R&D project groups. R&D Management vol. 12, pp. 7-19, 1982

In popular culture

MSV Not Invented Here is a Mind (The Culture) in Iain M Banks' Culture novels.

See also

Appeal to spite
Association fallacy
Style over substance fallacy

References Not Invented Here (NIH) is a term used to describe a persistent sociological, Corporate culture or institutional culture that avoids using already existing products, research or knowledge because of its different origins. It is normally used in a pejorative sense.

As a sociological phenomenon, "Not Invented Here" syndrome is manifested as an unwillingness to adopt an idea or product because it originates from another culture, a form of nationalism.

Usage in computing The computer industry has seen many examples of Not Invented Here syndrome.

For example, during the evolution of Mac OS through Mac OS 9 many user interface innovations found in other operating systems weren't adopted simply because they went against, or were not discussed in, Apple's original human interface guidelines. These critics say that this was an example of Apple irrationally rejecting any change not invented by themselves. Apple's long-held single-button mouse philosophy is arguably one example (or was until they introduced Apple Mighty Mouse, at least).

Another example was the difficulty that early British, and Japanese home computer manufacturers had to get the same acceptance for their products they had in their own country. For example the Timex Sinclair 2068 (an improved version of the British Sinclair Spectrum) almost got no attention, while in Britain the Sinclair Spectrum became hugely successful. Similarly the Japanese/Dutch MSX home computer standard became successful in many countries, except in countries that produced competing systems, Britain and the USA. The opposite was also true. British and American home computers got no foothold in Japan. In these cases perhaps both the "Not invented here", and the "invented here" syndromes were at work.

In the free software community Many in the free software / open source community have been accused of demonstrating the NIH syndrome because at any one time, there can be several programmers and/or groups working on different projects that, in effect, accomplish the same things as an existing solution. When a new program is written for task A because all existing programs that accomplish task A are not free, this is not NIH; but when it is done out of reasons that are not purely technical or legal, then it is referred to as "reinventing the wheel".

Reasons to reinvent a program can include pride, ignorance, discontent with some aspect of the existing solution, or simply the desire to create for creation's sake. These traits are in no way particularly specific to open source programmers; many programmers of proprietary software exhibit them as well.

The open source community may initially seek to provide the needed alternative to some fully or partially closed source implementation. However, later this closed implementation may also be released under an open source license, resulting in two competing open source projects. Examples of such situations could be Apache Velocity and WebMacro or, on a larger scale, KDE and GNOME. In other cases, two projects that can be classified as both free and open source just pick incompatible licenses (like GNU Classpath and Apache Harmony until the advent of GPLv3).

In Corporate IT NIH can be common in the corporate world of Information Technology, and must be compared with technology available at the time.

NIH syndrome in academia In academic environments, the motivation for the NIH effect is twofold: first, resources from student workers are often paid in a lump sum (as a stipend, scholarship, or fixed salary) resulting in no variable increase in pay for more requested work; and second, the drive for publication at some institutions may drive repetition of work done at other institutions or in industry so that the researcher (and institution) may publish about their (repeated) work.

The quality of academic products developed out the NIH effect is widely varied, mostly for the aforementioned reasons.

Usage in the military Some observers have suggested that the need to keep designers and bureaucrats in work plays an important part in decisions that prefer in-country work. *Katz & Allen, Investigating the Not Invented Here (NIH) Syndrome: a look at the performance, tenure and communication patterns of 50 R&D project groups. R&D Management vol. 12, pp. 7-19, 1982

In popular culture

MSV Not Invented Here is a Mind (The Culture) in Iain M Banks' Culture novels.