Dirk Riehle's Industry and Research Publications

Category: 1. Software Industry

  • Time to Curb Your Open Source Wording

    Time to Curb Your Open Source Wording

    I view open source mostly from an economic perspective. From this point of view, some of the words people use are curious. For example, people like to talk about “giving back” to the community or “donating a project” to the public. These idioms have community building power, like insider speak among those who speak it,…

  • The innovations of open source [Computer Magazine]

    The innovations of open source [Computer Magazine]

    Abstract: Open source has given us many innovations. This article provides an overview of the most important innovations and illustrates the impact that open source is having on the software industry and beyond. The main innovations of open source can be grouped into four categories: Legal innovation, process innovation, tool innovation, and business model innovation.…

  • Open Source Expanded (new column)

    Open Source Expanded (new column)

    Open Source Expanded is the name of a new column (open-ended article series) that I’m editing for IEEE Computer Magazine. Expect a new article on open source and how it is changing the world every two months! The first article on the innovations of open source was just published, kicking of the column. I could…

  • A Simple Model of the Organizational Support of Open Source Projects

    A Simple Model of the Organizational Support of Open Source Projects

    I’m very much interested in the governance of open source projects, in particular if these are user-led projects. With this post, I’m proposing a basic terminology to talk about the formal organizational structure underlying the governance of such open source projects. As the following two lists show, there are only three basic situations. First, there…

  • Free-to-Use, Unless You Are a Cloud Provider (The New Strategy?)

    Free-to-Use, Unless You Are a Cloud Provider (The New Strategy?)

    On the heels of my talk about the current licensing challenges to single-vendor open source firms, I want to discuss the resulting strategy for vendors selling to developers. Single-vendor open source firms go to market by providing software they developed to the world under an open source license. The goal is to create a large…

  • Why Now? And Who? The Struggle Over Single-Vendor / Open-Core Licensing

    Why Now? And Who? The Struggle Over Single-Vendor / Open-Core Licensing

    Update 2023-08-26: Redis writes to us that they rebranded from Redis Labs, to Redis. In yesterday’s talk I reviewed the current licensing struggle of single-vendor open source firms. Single-vendor open source firms go to market by providing software they developed for free, under an open source license, while also offering a commercially licensed version of…