Latest in Industry and Research Publications
-
Why Software Engineering is Not Like Assembly Line Work
The other day I ran into one of the oldest software engineering tropes in the book: That software engineering should be more like work in a factory, and that developers are best equated to assembly line workers who put together a software product by assembling components to a specification. I wasn’t sure whether I should…
-
![Getting started with FLOSS governance and compliance in companies [OpenSym 2019]](https://dirkriehle.com/wp-content/uploads/featured/10191-starbucks-american-breakfast-300x150.jpg)
Getting started with FLOSS governance and compliance in companies [OpenSym 2019]
Abstract: Commercial use of open source software is on the rise as more companies realize the benefits of using FLOSS components in their products. At the same time, the ungoverned use of such components can result in legal, financial, intellectual property, and other risks. To mitigate these risks, companies must govern their use of open source…
-
Solving the Commercial Open Source Licensing Dilemma With Triple-Licensing
As you may have noticed, the move away from approved open source licenses to commercial almost-like-open-source licenses by single-vendor-owned open source projects has created a lot of bad press for the vendors behind such software. I don’t really understand this, because for all that I can tell, a triple-licensing rather than just a dual-licensing approach…
-
Free and open source software licenses explained (Miriam Ballhausen, IEEE Computer)
I’m happy to report that the second article in the open source column of IEEE Computer has been published. Title Free and Open Source Software Licenses Explained Keywords Opensource software, licenses, computer security Authors Miriam Ballhausen, Bird & Bird, LLP Publication Computer vol. 52, no. 10 (June 2019), pp. 82-86 Abstract: This installment of Computer’s…
-
The Commercial Open Source Pledge
I’m pretty frustrated by some of the discussion around the recent relicensing decisions by commercial open source companies. A fair bit of it seems confused to me, and I think this is mostly due to commentators not understanding the purpose of community for the vendor. So I decided to write a hypothetical pledge for venture-capital…
-
Market Segmentation in the Open Core Model
Life is exciting in commercial open source land. On Tuesday this week, another commercial open source vendor relicensed its product while at the same time disavowing the open core model, which they call a tiered approach to their business. This disavowel piqued my interest, not because the open core model is good or bad, but…