Dirk Riehle's Industry and Research Publications

Category: 1.2 Open Source (Industry)

Sorting out the Ethical Licensing Mess

Software developers who give the world, for free, usage rights to the code they write often use open source licenses to make this gift legally explicit. These free usage rights (and then some) are encoded in all valid open source licenses, next to the obligations one has to fulfill to receive the rights grant. Recently,…

2020-02-27
Open Source is an On-ramp to the Cloud

I was surprised to hear the other day that “the cloud is killing open source”. I thought we settled that one ten years ago. Nothing could be further from the truth: Open source and cloud computing work together well. From a commercial open source business model perspective, open source is the on-ramp to a cloud…

2019-12-02
Open source is not free (nor is free software)

Later this week I’ll be on a panel at the Automotive Computing Conference in Frankfurt. The organizers sent the questions in advance, and sure enough, they were asking how open source could provide viable software components if it is free (of cost). This perhaps is the most common commercial misconception about open source. Open source…

2019-10-21
Industry best practices for corporate open sourcing [HICSS 2020]

Abstract: Companies usually don’t share the source code for the software they develop. While this approach is justified in software that constitutes differentiating intellectual property, proprietary development can lead to redundant development and other opportunity costs. In response, companies are increasingly open sourcing some if not all of their non-differentiating software. Given the limited academic…

2019-09-17
Industry requirements for FLOSS governance tools to facilitate the use of open-source software in commercial products [JSS Journal]

Abstract: Virtually all software products incorporate free/libre and open source software (FLOSS) components. However, ungoverned use of FLOSS components can result in legal and nancial risks, and risks to a rm’s intellectual property. To avoid these risks, companies must govern their FLOSS use through open source governance processes and by following industry best practices. A…

2019-08-22
Why Self-Enlightened Contribution to Open Source Projects is Difficult

Self-enlightened contributions to open source projects are (code) contributions that come about because a company chooses to contribute. The opposite is forced open sourcing, which typically happens when a reciprocal license like the GPLv2 forces a company to lay open some source code. Self-enlightened contribution is hard! Here are three examples that might make a…

2019-08-08