SYSC 5801 Open Source Business - Carleton · sharing: Open source and beyond, The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 19(2), 99–120. • Scacchi, W. (2007), Free/open source software

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SYSC 5801Open Source Business

Session 2: Sep 19

Fall 2011

Michael Weiss www.carleton.ca/timwww.carleton.ca/tim/tim.pdf

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mailto:[email protected]




http://www.carleton.ca/tim/tim.pdf

http://www.carleton.ca/tim/tim.pdf


Objective

• Upon completion of this class, you will know about:– Different ways of defining open source– Questions relevant to open source businesses

• And you will be able to:– Start working on group and individual assignments

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Agenda

1. Administrative

2. Defining open source

3. Explaining open source

4. Relevant questions

5. Key lessons

6. Key concepts

7. Questions

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1. Administrative

• Article on class topic

• Case study

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Article on class topic (30%)

• Write an article (1.5-3K words) for the TIM Review (formerly OSBR.ca) on a class topic

• Sign up on course wiki for course topic

• You review each others articles and learn about and contribute to the editorial process

• Articles to appear in Jan and/or Feb issues

• Deadlines:– First version due: week 1 after the class– Feedback on first version from peers: week 2 after the class– Final version due: week 3 after the class

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Case study (20%)

• Describe an open source business (1000 words)

• Description should contain content on:1. Value proposition2. Customers3. Resources, activities, and partners4. Revenue model

• Key questions to ask for each section of the case study will be provided on the wiki

• First version of presentation on Oct 31 (for feedback)

• Final version on the last day of class & document

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Readings

• Lerner, J., & Tirole, J. (2002), Some simple economics of open source, The Journal of Industrial Economics, 50(2), 197-234.

• Lerner, J., & Tirole, J. (2005), The economics of technology sharing: Open source and beyond, The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 19(2), 99–120.

• Scacchi, W. (2007), Free/open source software development: Recent research results and emerging opportunities, European Software Engineering Conference (ESEC) and ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE): Companion Papers, ACM, 459-468.

• Crowston, K., Wei, K., Howison, J., & Wiggins, A. (2010), Free/libre open source software development: What we know and what we do not know, ACM Computing Surveys, in press.

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2. Defining open source

• What is open source?

• More than just access to source code

• Criteria defined by FSF and OSI

• History of open source

• Pragmatic perspective on open source

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Pop quiz

• Name at least five of these projects

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http://static.fsf.org/nosvn/working/w/charac-more.png




What is open source?

• Form groups and discuss with your peers

• After 5 min report back to the class: we will do a round robin, ie each group reports one finding

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Free Software Foundation (FSF)

• Defines open source through four freedoms– Freedom to run a program– Freedom to study and change a program (this implies

source code is available)– Freedom to redistribute copies– Freedom to distribute modified copies (this, once more,

implies that source code is available)

• Free as in libre, not free as in zero cost

• http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

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http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html


Open Source Initiative (OSI)

• Free software is open source software, but open source software is not always free

• What makes open source software (OSS) different?

• Variety of licenses, which may add/remove freedoms (eg right to bundle OSS with proprietary code)

• OSS is also a way of producing software in an open, distributed, collaborative manner

• Pragmatic perspective on open source, emphasizing company involvement in open source projects

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History of open source

• Early 60s to 80s– Sharing of code between organizations commonplace– Prime examples: C and Unix

• Early 80s to 90s– Innovation of formal licensing procedure as a way of

preventing patent rights to be asserted over software that was collaboratively developed (as AT&T did to Unix)

– Prime example: General Public License (GPL)

• Early 90s to today– Open source activity accelerated by rise of Internet– Interaction between companies and open source community– Prime examples: Linux and Apache

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3. Explaining open source

• Economics perspective

• Software development perspective

• Small groups perspective

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Economics of open source

• Incentives for individuals to contribute

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Closed source Open sourceShort-termrewards

• Generates income • Lower cost due to alumni effect and private benefits (can fix bugs, customize)

Delayed rewards

• Weak signalling• Performance

measured by supervisors

• Strong signalling• Visible performance• Ability to attribute• Self-selection• Can shift more easily

between projects


Key actors

• Form groups and discuss with your peers:– Who is involved in the creation of open source?– What is the role of each of the actors?

• After 10 min report back to the class: we will do a round robin, ie each group reports one findings

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Actors and roles (worksheet)

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Actor Roles






Key actors and their motivations

• Key actors in an open source product are individuals, companies, and the legal system (copyright)

• Motivations for individuals can be intrinsic (learn skills, fun, signalling, use value) or extrinsic ($)

• Motivations for companies include: sell proprietary complements, as a development approach, a razor and blade strategy (release code and sell services), enter a market dominated by a bigger player

• Licenses shape an OSS by enabling/restricting how licensors and contributors can profit from code

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Open source software development

• Participation of individuals and companies

• Resources and capabilities (personal, belief systems, tools, skills, time, effort, and trust)

• Cooperation, coordination, and control (project management and governance)

• Social networks and project networks

• Platforms and ecosystems (co-evolution of systems and the communities that develop them)

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Small groups perspective

• Input-mediators-output-input

• Input: members, projects, technology

• Mediators: process (team interactions) and emergent states (dynamic properties of a team)

• Output: team performance, artifacts

• Input: feedback loop

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Inputs

• Members: member distribution, motivation of individuals and companies, participation of individuals and company-led participation in OSS projects

• Projects: license types (most studied construct, 21%), license distribution by type of project

• Technology: types and features of tools

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Processes

• Software development processes: project and release management, requirements, coding

• Social processes (16% of studied constructs): socialization (recruitment), decision making and leadership, coordination and collaboration– Mechanisms to control number of developers– Modularity and division of labor– Mechanisms to assign tasks to developers– Guidelines and standardization

• Company involvement processes

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Emergent states

• Trust: team effectiveness, leadership (result of technical contribution and network position)

• Task-related states: roles (core-periphery), level of commitment (contribution distribution)

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Outputs

• Team performance (12% of studied constructs): success and its determinants

• Software implementation and evolution: patterns of code and community evolution

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Key issues

• Identify key issues in open source– What are the issues identified by the articles?– What other issues can we think of?

• Brainstorm issues (10 min) and cluster them (5 min)

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Key issues (worksheet)

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Relevance Issue






Key issues

• How does quality of open source software compare to that of commercial software?

• Should governments encourage open source?

• How do (will) software patents affect open source?

• Other issues?

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4. Relevant questions

• Why do companies participate in OSS projects?

• How to create and manage communities?

• How to collect data on and analyze OSS projects?

• How to manage OSS development?

• Role of architecture in OSS projects?

• How to capture value from OSS projects?

• How to select and use OSS licenses?

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5. Key lessons

• Multiple definitions of open source

• No longer a question of what motivates volunteers, but how companies can leverage open source

• Other lessons?

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6. Key concepts

• Open source

• Open source criteria

• Licenses

• Development process

• Motivation

• Project

• Community

• Company-led participation

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7. Questions

• How can the open source approach be applied beyond software (hardware, processes)?

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Upcoming sessions

• Introduction

• Participation (Sep 26)

• Community

• Modeling

• Process

• Architecture

• Business models

• Licensing

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Next class

• Four papers on participation– Roberts et al. (2006)– Dahlander (2007)– Fosfuri et al. (2008)– Spaeth et al. (2010)– Weiss (2011b)

• Questions we will examine– Why do individuals contribute to open source projects?– What motivates companies to contribute to open source

projects? What forms of contribution are there?– Conditions under which companies integrate OSS?– External and collective innovation models

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Documents

SYSC 5801 Open Source Business - Carleton · sharing: Open source and beyond, The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 19(2), 99–120. • Scacchi, W. (2007), Free/open source software