Dirk Riehle's Industry and Research Publications

Category: 1. Software Industry

  • Red Hat on patents and total growth of open source

    Red Hat on patents and total growth of open source

    A couple of days ago, Red Hat filed a brief with the EPO (European Patent Office), arguing that patents hinder software innovation (as masterfully summarized by Glynn Moody). From Red Hat’s press release: Today Red Hat took its efforts to confront the problem of software patents to new ground by filing a brief with the…

  • The commercial open source business model [AMCIS 2009]

    The commercial open source business model [AMCIS 2009]

    Abstract: Commercial open source software projects are open source software projects that are owned by a single firm that derives a direct and significant revenue stream from the software. Commercial open source at first glance represents an economic paradox: How can a firm earn money if it is making its product available for free as…

  • Modeling micro-blogging adoption in the enterprise [AMCIS 2009]

    Modeling micro-blogging adoption in the enterprise [AMCIS 2009]

    Abstract: Despite a broad range of collaboration tools already available, enterprises continue to look for ways to improve internal and external communication. Micro-blogging is such a new communication channel with some considerable potential to improve intra-firm transparency and knowledge sharing. However, the adoption of such social software presents certain challenges to enterprises. Based on the…

  • Micro-blogging in the enterprise: Focus groups evaluation results

    Micro-blogging in the enterprise: Focus groups evaluation results

    A couple of weeks ago, Oliver Günther and I reported about the results of the Micro-Blogging in the Enterprise Focus Groups we had undertaken in December 2008. The report was an internal talk at SAP Labs LLC in Palo Alto and drew a record audience. I’m glad to report that we can publish the slides…

  • Estimating commit sizes efficiently [OSS 2009]

    Estimating commit sizes efficiently [OSS 2009]

    Authors: Philipp Hofmann, Dirk Riehle Abstract: The quantitative analysis of software projects can provide insights that let us better understand open source and other software development projects. An important variable used in the analysis of software projects is the amount of work being contributed, the commit size. Unfortunately, post-facto, the commit size can only be…

  • The sweet spot of code commenting in open source

    The sweet spot of code commenting in open source

    In a large-scale study of active working open source projects we have found an average comment density of about 20% (= one comment line in five code lines). Given that much of open source remains volunteer work, we believe that a comment density of 20% represents the sweet spot of code commenting in open source…