Latest in Industry and Research Publications
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Is it “Use” or “Reuse”?
In software engineering, it is an old question whether you are “using” a component or whether you are “reusing” it. People tend to use these two terms interchangeably, annoying those among us who are trying to put precise meaning to terms. Alas, I don’t know of a good commonly accepted definition. I only know that…
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Commercial Open Source: Faster, Better, Cheaper, and More Easily?
I’m trying to create a pithy statement as to how commercial open source firms are superior to traditional (closed source) software development firms. For that, I need to define what the specific effects are that using an open source go-to-market strategy has on the bottom line. (If your answer is “it’s the community, naturally”—that’s not…
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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…
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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…
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Modeling Micro-Blogging Adoption in the Enterprise
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…
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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…