Authors: Dirk Riehle
Abstract: An open source foundation is a group of people and companies that has come together to jointly develop community open source software. Examples include the Apache Software Foundation, the Eclipse Foundation, and the Gnome Foundation. There are many reasons why software development firms join and support a foundation. One common economic [...]
Entries Tagged as 'OSBF'
The Economic Case for Open Source Foundations
January 6th, 2010 · No Comments · Industry, OSBF, Open Source, Publication, Research, Software Engineering, Wikimedia
Tags:
Four Months of Open Source Professorship
December 31st, 2009 · 4 Comments · Announcement, Industry, OSBF, Open Source, Research, Software Engineering
2009 is coming to an end and so are my first four months as a professor. Time to take stock, if only shortly.
The Open Source Research group posted a year-end summary for its first months
There is initial sponsorship by Red Hat and Novell, demonstrating industry interest
There was a fair amount of press around the professorship, [...]
Tags:
Open Source Vendor Lock-in
November 11th, 2009 · 9 Comments · Industry, OSBF, Open Source
Yesterday, SAP’s CTO Vishal Sikka called for a more open approach to the Java standardization process (JCP), asking SUN to stop ruling it with a heavy hand. Not surprisingly, he got some pushback using the argument that SAP isn’t one to talk about being more open, given its slow involvement with open source.
I don’t think [...]
Tags:
OpenOffice.org at Oracle after the Sun Acquisition
October 9th, 2009 · 4 Comments · Industry, OSBF, Open Source
Yesterday, I participated in the local JUG’s discussion of the Sun acquisition by Oracle. Somewhat to my surprise, the general opinion was dismissive of OpenOffice’s future at Oracle. I haven’t spent much prior thought on this, but to me, OpenOffice seems to fit much better with Oracle than with Sun, at least on a strategic [...]
Tags:
Why Open Source is Hard for Closed Source Vendors (Alpha Release)
September 11th, 2009 · 12 Comments · Industry, OSBF, Open Source, Presentation, Research, Wikimedia
It is difficult for many closed source software vendors to embrace open source. Why is this so? After all, over the last years we have come to understand the many business benefits of employing open source as part of a software vendor’s strategy toolbox. In this presentation, I make a first attempt at answering this [...]
Tags:
Talk Slides: The Commercial Open Source Business Model
August 7th, 2009 · 7 Comments · OSBF, Open Source, Presentation, Research, Wikimedia
For my AMCIS 2009 talk on the single-vendor commercial open source business model, first the abstract, then the slides:
Commercial open source software projects are open source software projects that are owned by a single firm that derives a direct and significant revenue stream from the software. Commercial open source at first glance represents an economic [...]
Tags:
The Intellectual Property Rights Imperative of Single-Vendor Open Source
July 18th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Industry, OSBF, Open Source
I guess everybody knows it but nobody ever named it, as far as I know, so I’m doing it here:
The Intellectual Property Rights Imperative of Single-Vendor Commercial Open Source
Always act in such a way that you, and only you, possess the right to provide the open source project under a license of your choice.
Tags:
Every License has its Time and Place
July 17th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Industry, OSBF, Open Source
You may have noticed the recent discussion about which open source license a single-vendor commercial open source firm should choose for its community offering. In this blog post I’ll argue that this choice depends on the state and speed of the firm.
Tags:
Commercial Open Source: The Naming Confusion Remains
June 19th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Industry, OSBF, Open Source
In 2004, SugarCRM coined the term “commercial open source“. This term was intend to separate the commercially-oriented open source projects of venture-capital-backed startups from the then dominant community open source projects. The term was picked up quickly, by many. I (as well as others) define it the following way:
“A commercial open source firm is [...]
Tags:
Commercial Open Source: Faster, Better, Cheaper, and More Easily?
May 19th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Industry, OSBF, Open Source, Wikimedia
I’m trying to create a pithy statement as to how commercial open source firms are superior to traditional (closed source) software development firms. For that, I need to define what the specific effects are that using an open source go-to-market strategy has on the bottom line. (If your answer is “it’s the community, naturally”—that’s not [...]
Tags: