Open source, building products, software startups, and industry strategy by Prof. Dr. Dirk Riehle
On Nov 5, starting at 2pm, a EU task force will present its findings on open source in Europe on hopin. Join the event and/or join me for my panel session at 5pm about commercial open source startups!
I’m happy to report that the tenth article in the Open Source Expanded column of IEEE Computer has been published.
| Title | Free and open source software license compliance: Tools for software composition analysis |
| Keywords | Open source software, software composition, open source licenses, automation |
| Authors | Philippe Ombredanne, nexB Inc. |
| Publication | Computer vol. 53, no. 10 (October 2020), pp. 105-109. |
Dave Neary and colleagues recently started a podcast on open source in business. There are already two episodes out, the first one on product management in commercial open source, and the second one on open source and the cloud. Check them out!
Even better yet, yours truly will be on the podcast for the third episode, talking about the labor economics of open source. I first thought we’d be discussing our article on the open source software developer career. However, Dave has much more in store, so don’t miss it and register right away! It will air on September 29th, 2020, at 4pm CEST/11am EDT/8am PDT with a Europe friendly timezone! The episode is live so you can ask questions.
Continue reading “Open Source in Business on Labor Economics”I just presented 15 min. of my thoughts on the product management challenge of open source and the role of cloud computing at O4B, the European commercial open source forum. You can watch the video below (local video copy, slide download).
I also make few remarks on the public funding ecosystem for high-tech startups in Germany (hint: it is fabulous). More on this later.
A person’s universal basic income (UBI) is income that this person is guaranteed to receive whatever their living circumstances. The income should allow the person to have a humane life, i.e. pay for food and housing, healthcare and so forth.
Continue reading “Funding Universal Basic Income with Rent From Your Data”
I’m glad to report that we will have a new open source conference in Europe, focused on commercial open source. I’ll be a speaker and panelist and helped initiate the event. It is not the first of its kind, but I’m very happy that we have a new one with hopefully more staying power than previous attempts.
Continue reading “A New Commercial Open Source Conference”
An important benefit of an open source project is that it is long-lived and can’t go out of business. Unlike a closed source supplier, which can go bankrupt, your usage and update rights to an open source software can’t suddenly disappear.
From working with customers I know very well that the manufacturers of (comparatively) expensive machines like cars, trains, and planes have long warmed up to open source and appreciate that open source projects will stick around when (some) closed source suppliers are long gone or killed their products.
Continue reading “Where is Open Source in Factory Automation?”
In September 2020, I will be teaching a workshop series on commercial open source startups at UC Santa Cruz (and starting November, as a course, at FAU). The series at UCSC is being faciliated by CROSS, the Center for Research in Open Source Software, and I’m getting help from Thomas Otter (@vendorprisey). If you would like to register, check out the official announcement! If you are affiliated with UC Santa Cruz, talk to Stephanie Lieggi (or me) to get in! If you are just curious, here is the general syllabus.
A week ago I asked the Twitterverse how to call community open source projects that are not hosted by a foundation. By saying community open source I excluded both commercial open source and corporately-run open source. The options were plain, plain old, traditional, and ungoverned. Ungoverned won with a small margin at 34% of the 111 votes. But this is only a part of the story.
Continue reading “What to Call Traditional Community Open Source Projects Not Hosted by a Foundation?”