Dirk Riehle's Industry and Research Publications

Category: 1. Software Industry

  • Myopia: Is it a feature or a product?

    Myopia: Is it a feature or a product?

    A common mistake of inexperienced entrepreneurs is to confuse a feature with a product. The best recent illustrating example I can think of is the flashlight app: For a short moment in time, you could sell flashlight apps for mobile phones until Apple and Google came in, assimilated the flashlight function as a feature into…

  • Will open source fix the public cloud vendor lock-in?

    Will open source fix the public cloud vendor lock-in?

    Over on Twi… what-shall-not-be-named, Kelsey Hightower argued that companies want on-premise back and that this is happening by on-premise product vendors copying cloud APIs in their products: It might just turn out that the cloud was the best way to research and design better ways of managing our systems, and thanks to the open source…

  • Let’s celebrate relicensing from an open source to a proprietary license

    Let’s celebrate relicensing from an open source to a proprietary license

    tl;dr Commercial open source firms are beneficial to society, even if they eventually license away from open source, because they are exploring a search space for useful open-source software that is otherwise hard to get to. Commercial open source firms that license away from open source licenses to non-compete licenses don’t get a lot of…

  • Cybersecurity risks unique to open source and what communities are doing to reduce them (Matthew L. Levy, IEEE Computer)

    Cybersecurity risks unique to open source and what communities are doing to reduce them (Matthew L. Levy, IEEE Computer)

    I’m happy to report that the 25th article in the open source column of IEEE Computer has been published. Title Cybersecurity Risks Unique to Open Source and What Communities Are Doing to Reduce Them Keywords Public Domain Software, Risk Management, Security Of Data, Cybersecurity Risk, Open Source, Risk Areas, Source Projects Authors Matthew L. Levy…

  • How to win with open source and openness (in German) [F.A.Z.-Institut Managementkompass]

    How to win with open source and openness (in German) [F.A.Z.-Institut Managementkompass]

    I’m happy to report about a new trade magazine publication, aimed at the German C-level suite, about how to win in business using open source and openness. The article is written in German and you can read it here. The overall issue including all other articles is also available (local copy). Reference: Riehle, D. (2023).…

  • Open source promises not made and broken

    Open source promises not made and broken

    Using open-source software in products and projects is not a no-brainer. Like with any software, introducing a dependency on an open source component creates a lock-in that should be thought through well. All too often, people are lazy when thinking (or not thinking) through such decisions. Case in point 1: An open source programmer on…