Transcript Introduction to Open Source Software

Introduction to Open Source
Software
Jeremy Hayes
ARE WE TALKING ABOUT FREE
SOFTWARE?
NO – OSS
is not Free
Software
Richard Stallman
American software freedom
activist, hacker and software
developer.
Founder of the Free Software
Movement
Remember: Free is used as in
“Free Speech” rather than “Free
Beer”
SO, WHAT IS ‘OPEN SOURCE
SOFTWARE’?
Source Code
Binary Code
• Firms seek to
protect their
Intellectual Assets
– Trademarks,
Patents, Copyright,
Intellectual Property
Rights
• In the software
industry… this
means keeping your
source code
‘Proprietary’
THE VILLAIN OF THE PIECE
“Never yield to force; never yield to the
apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”
(Winston Churchill)
• Microsoft is an
example of ‘Closed
Source’ or
Proprietary Software
• You licence a copy of
MS Vista or MS Office
• Microsoft fight hard
against software
piracy
• And why not? They
spend millions on
R&D…
• So what’s the
problem?
BSOD
SO WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL ABOUT
OPEN SOURCE?
Linus Torvalds (Our Hero)
• Linux
– Operating System
– Torvalds posted code on the internet
and invited other developers to
improve it.
– Tens of thousands of developers have
worked on it (Open Source
Community).
– Collaborative developments between
software writers
– Worldwide workforce of enthusiasts
– Surprisingly, the software developed is
stable enough to be used by
commercial organisations
But surely unpaid‘volunteers’
couldn’t produce something so
useful?
‘Many eyes make bugs shallow’
Linux OS
– Has been adopted by end-users and by
established hardware vendors such as IBM and HP
which supply it as an option with their computers.
– Sony, Nokia, Philips Medical, JP Morgan are just
some of the firms using Linux for mission critical
activities.
– Market Share 2007
• Servers: ~35%
• Desktops: ~6%
Another useful Open Source Product
Mozilla Firefox
• Netscape Navigator was
the dominant Internet
Browser
• Lost Market Share
during Browser War of
late 90’s
• Released source code in
1998
• Led to development of
Firefox
Browser War
• Microsoft bundled (gave
away) Internet Explorer
browser with Windows
• Cut off ‘air supply’ to
Netscape
• US Vs Microsoft
– Found that MS used its
monopoly position to
crush opposition
– MS should be split into
two companies
– Overturned on appeal 
OSS in Munich
• May 2003 - the city of Munich
decided to oust Microsoft
Windows from the 14,000
computers used by localgovernment employees in favour
of Linux, an open-source operating
system.
• Although the contract was worth a
modest $35m, Microsoft's chief
executive, Steve Ballmer,
interrupted his holiday in
Switzerland to visit Munich and
lobby the mayor.
• Microsoft even dropped its prices
to match Linux
– a remarkable feat since Linux is
essentially free and users merely
purchase support services alongside
it.
OSS in Munich
• Microsoft still lost
– The city did not wish to place the functioning of government in the
hands of a commercial vendor with proprietary standards which is
accountable to shareholders rather than to citizens.
• Modern governments generate a vast number of digital files.
– From birth certificates and tax returns to criminal DNA records, the
documents must be retrievable in perpetuity.
• So governments are reluctant to store official records in the
proprietary formats of commercial-software vendors. This
concern will only increase as e-government services, such as
filing a tax return or applying for a driving licence online, gain
momentum.
• In Microsoft's case, security flaws in its software, such as
those exploited by the recent Blaster and SoBig viruses, are
also a cause of increasing concern.
OSS in Munich
• Government purchases of software totalled almost $17
billion globally in 2002, and the figure is expected to
grow by about 9% a year for the next five years.
• Microsoft controls a relatively small part of this market,
with sales to governments estimated at around $2.8
billion.
• It is a crucial market, because when a government opts
for a particular technology, the citizens and businesses
that deal with it often have to fall into line. (In one
notable example, America's defence department
adopted the internet protocol as its networking
standard, forcing contractors to use it, which in turn
created a large market for internet-compliant
products.)
SourceForge
SourceForge Medical Science Apps
Commodification of software
Knowing what to make open and when ...
“Commodification of software”
Technology
Differentiating
gy
lo
no
ch
te
life
e
cl
cy
Basic for the business
Commodity
Intra
Inter
company company
Open
Cooperation
van der Linden, et al. Forthcoming in IEEE Software (www.itea-cosi.org)
Björn Lundell, University of Skövde, Sweden
25
GET READY FOR ‘OPEN
EVERYTHING’
Peer Production
• alternative model for organizing
production without reliance on
markets, managerial hierarchies,
property and contracts
• characterized by the decentralized
accumulation and exchange of
information
• potentially superior as a mechanism
for discovering/applying human skill
and knowledge to the creation of
information resources.
• Includes;
– collaborative authorship (e.g.
Wikipedia.org),
– user generated content and metacontent (e.g. YouTube.com, Del.icio.us),
– and various forms of ‘open innovation’
The Poster Children
Open innovation is:
• ‘The use of purposive inflows and outflows of
knowledge to accelerate internal innovation,
and expand the markets for external use of
innovation, respectively.
• Open innovation is a paradigm that assumes
that firms can and should use external ideas
as well as internal ideas, and internal and
external paths to market, as they look to
advance their technology.… This approach
places external ideas and external paths to
market on the same level of importance as
Ana Paula Valente Pereira, Founding
Partner, WhatEver Consulting Group,
and Eclipse Process Framework
Committer
Types of Open Innovation
• Transforming to a new business by acquiring
competence
• Open innovation as a problem finder
• Open innovation as platform development
Peer Production Works When
• The object of production is information or
culture, which keeps the cost of participation
low for contributors
• Tasks can be chunked out into bite-size pieces
that individuals can contribute in small
increments and independently of other
producers
• The costs of integrating those pieces into a
finished product, including the leadership and
quality-control mechanisms, must be low
Facilitating Interactions
Focus
Mediated
Intellectual Property
Innovation
Capability
Solution Brokerage
e.g. Yet2.
Solver Brokerage
e.g. InnoCentive,
NineSigma,
YourEncore.
Solution Hierarchy
e.g. Proctor & Gamble’s
Connect & Develop
initiative.
Solver Market
e.g. Threadless.
Configuration
Direct
Can we peer-produce a service?
• Developing and rewarding the community
– Reputation, Cash, Education, Entertainment
• Interacting with the Community
– Network governance Vs organisational control
– IP Management
• Developing and sustaining suitable business
models
– Revenue models
– Using new services to enhance value offerings
– Companies become aggregators of competence and
components
– Get it outside until the cost of evaluating it is more
Beyond OSS, Why Should We Care?
• Where is the technology, information, systems
etc?
• What does OI / PP have to do with “the
interaction of information systems and the
organisation”?
• What have we to contribute?
• What should the focus of our enquiry be?
• What theories / lenses are appropriate?
On strategy and perspective?
• For strategy we need organized information
about the environment. Strategy has to be
based on information about markets,
customers, and non-customers; about
technology in one’s own industry and others;
about world-wide finance; and about the
changing world economy. For that is where
the results are. Inside an organization, there
are only cost centres. The only profit centre is
a customer whose cheque has not bounced
(Peter Drucker, “The information executives truly need”, Harvard Business Review,
On strategy and perspective?
o Need for inter-organisational / network
perspective for success
o What about product (sequential) vs. service
(reciprocal) perspective?
o Participation and governance by output-oriented
control
o What about
o openness,
o value co-creation,
o design for modularity rather than design by
modularity, and
Recommended Reading:
• Chapter 1 and 2 from
“Understanding Open
Source Software
Development” by Joseph
Feller and Brian Fitzgerald
(Boole Q+1 005.1 Fell)
• Raymond, E. “The
Cathedral and the Bazaar”
http://www.catb.org/~esr
/writings/cathedralbazaar/