Category: 1. Software Industry
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My top three trends for open source in 2019 (3/3)
The most important long-term trend, and my number #3 for the foreseeable future, is the sponsorship and management of open source software development by users, not vendors. The trend towards ubiquitous digitization is leading users of software to take their software fate into their own hands, establishing informal communities or incorporating as non-profit user consortia…
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My top three trends for open source in 2019 (2/3)
Trend #2 for 2019 in my book is making single-vendor open source, also known as the open core model a.k.a. neo-proprietary open source, work in the world of cloud computing. In this model, a software vendor goes to market using an intellectual property strategy that combines open sourcing of the product with an aggressive copyleft…
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My top three trends for open source in 2019 (1/3)
Trend #1 that took root in 2018 and will continue in 2019 is the clean-up of the open source supply chain. According to some lawyers, there is little legally valid software left, mostly because of unclear copyright and licenses of open source code in products and components. To clean up this mess, all open source…
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How Project vs. Product Confuses Open Source Terminology
The terms project and product are used with continued confusion. Both open source and agile methods are particularly bad offenders, leading people astray. Adapted straight from the textbooks: Not always, but typically, a project is used to create a custom artifact, while a product is (by definition) made for a market, that is, many different…
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Looking for examples of open source user consortia
We are researching the governance of open source software foundations. We are specifically interested in what we call open source user consortia, that is, open source foundations where the users of the software are in the driver’s seat. A primary example would be Kuali, which hosts the development of software for academic institutions. A more…
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EU survey on open source software and standardization
Open source software and patents are a tricky topic and resolution of the many hairy issues may need new and/or revised laws. Fraunhofer Gesellschaft is currently running a survey for the European Union to gather broad stakeholder input on the topic. I encourage participation. Deadline is Nov 30th, 2018.