Software Research and the Industry

This is a list of general interest talks I have at hand:

• The Single Vendor Commercial Open Source Business Model
• Firm-Internal Open Source
• A New Software Developer Career
• Selected Research Results of How and Why Open Source Works

In addition, there are always the research talks.

The speaker bio is here as a one-paragraph bio and here as a half-page bio.

1. The Single Vendor Commercial Open Source Business Model

Abstract: Open source is changing how software is built and how money is made. In particular software startups have found that open source can be used as a disruptive business strategy to win new or existing markets. Commercial open source vendors need to understand new revenue models and follow a new intellectual rights imperative. In addition, the vendor as a whole needs to learn new skills of community engagement and management. This talk explains the business processes and business functions of the single-vendor commercial open source business model and how they form a whole.

Audience: Executives, business strategists, and about anyone wishing to work for a commercial open source firm

Preferred length: 90min

2. Firm-Internal Open Source

Abstract: The open source style of software development emerged on the open Internet but can also be applied behind a corporate firewall. At SAP, we have found that firm-internal software projects can benefit significantly by adopting selected best practices of open source software development. This talk explains the possible benefits and shows how SAP and other software development firms achieved them. We demonstrate the benefits using a case study and by describing SAP’s internal software forge and how it helps firm-internal projects.

Audience: Software developers, engineering managers, product managers

Difficulty level: Intermediate

Preferred length: 60min

3. A New Software Developer Career

Abstract: Open source creates a new career ladder for software developers, orthogonal to the traditional career in software firms. Advancing on this career ladder can win developers broader recognition for their work, increase their salaries, and improve their job security. Software developers, project and hiring managers, and personnel departments alike need to understand this new dimension in a developer’s career. This talk explains the career and discusses what skills a developer should possess or train to be successful.

Audience: Software developers, engineering managers, human resource experts

Difficulty level: Intermediate

Preferred length: 60min

4. Selected Research Results of How and Why Open Source Works

Abstract: For the first time in the history of software engineering, we can both broadly and deeply analyze the behavior and dynamics of software development projects. This has become possible because of open source, which is publicly developed software. In this presentation, I will discuss our recent findings about open source software, its development process, and programmer behavior. I also discuss the challenges we encountered when quantitatively mining software repositories for such insights.

Audience: Software researchers, software developers, engineering managers

Preferred length: 45min