Category: 1.4 Open Source Foundations
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Classifying open source user consortia
An open source software user consortium is a non-profit organization (foundation, consortium, working group) created for the purpose of funding and managing the development of non-differentiating open source software made available to foundation members and the general public. Its purpose is to establish a software ecosystem in which vendors and suppliers can provide products and…
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OpenKONSEQUENZ: Offene Software für Netzbetreiber (in German)
Consulting company PTA reports about its development of open source software for the German energy software user consortium openKONSEQUENZ, which sponsors and manages the development of open source software for the energy sector. The Netzpraxis article start out with: Auf der openKONSEQUENZ-Plattform steht seit kurzem Unternehmen der Energie- und Wasserwirtschaft das Modul »Betriebstagebuch« zur Verfügung.…
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How to capture open source user consortia 4/4
tl;dr: Existing foundations need a new kind of incubator to capture budding user consortia. An open source user consortium is a consortium of companies who sponsor, steer, and possibly also develop open source software for their own use rather than as part of software products they sell. As explained previously, this phenomenon may not be…
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The scope of the opportunity 3/4
tl;dr: The scope of the opportunity at hand is large, much larger than today’s impact of open source. The software industry is large; all other industries together that need software are larger. Much larger. Today’s open source software is mostly serving the needs of software vendors. When you look at the projects guided by the…
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Does the incorporation type matter to open source foundations? 2/4
tl;dr: It doesn’t really matter how a foundation incorporates; what matters is the actual governance. A typical response to the creation of new open source foundations is to decry them as “vanity foundations”. In a few instances, that may be true, but I think as a generalization it is not correct. Usually, companies think first…
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The Apache Software Foundation (@TheASF) is missing out 1/4
tl;dr: The ASF is not serving the needs of companies from outside the software industry well. The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) is the original gold standard of open source foundations. Yet its project and governance model takes a one-size-fits-all approach that is holding beginners to such high standards that they may never get started with…