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The give and take of OSS
According to a recent Accenture survey of IT executives, open-source software is being heavily adopted, with 50 per cent of those surveyed 'fully committed' to open source, 69 per cent planning to up their investment in open source, and 38 per cent planning to migrate mission-critical software to open-source alternatives in 2010. However, a surprising 29 per cent are unwilling to contribute back their code modifications to the relevant communities. Is this a problem?
Investment in open source software will only go up from here
This year could be of critical importance to the open source software industry, reports Amy Vernon, with a recent survey showing that a majority of businesses and organisations in the US and the UK expect to increase investment in it this year. The survey, by Accenture, also showed that nearly 40 per cent of those queried also planned to migrate critical operations to open source systems in the next 12 months.
Crowdsourcing is a skill, not a theory
Joel West recently attended the 8th Annual International Open and User Innovation Workshop. In one of the papers, he reports, Hind Benbya and Marshall Van Alstyne explained how crowdsourcing can be used to create internal markets for knowledge using the two-sided market perspective to match buyers and sellers - as in external crowdsourcing.
'Involve universities and local tech companies when moving to open source'
Public administrations considering a move to open source should make sure they involve universities and IT companies, said Martin Garcia, head of IT at the department for Infrastructure and Transport at the Valencia regional administration, at a conference in the city of Guadalajara, Spain.
NESTA: new look economy will be built on high tech and innovation
The UK can only achieve healthy economic growth and job creation by boosting its high-tech capabilities and innovation across the economy, according to a report published by NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts).
Open source community is driven by values of transparency and political enfranchisement
Is open source more democratic or meritocratic? wonders Eric Gries. You could make a convincing case for either one, he believes, but suggests that it's probably somewhere in between - like a lot of things in life. He goes on to consider the characteristics of open source, concluding that the open source community is driven by the pragmatic values of transparency and political enfranchisement.
The basis of OSS business models: property and efficiency
In the closing part of his mini-series on OSS business models, Carlo Daffara concludes that property and efficiency form the basis of all the business models he has analysed - where property is 'anything that may be transferred to another entity through a contract or legal transaction' and efficiency is the 'ability to perform an action at a lower cost'.
How to get your open source project to 1.0
Damien Katz, whose Apache CouchDB recently hit 1.0, shares tips on creating a successful open source project. These include:
- decide why you are creating a project and what problems it solves
- code comes first
- know what you aren't
- community wants to help
Why Does FOSS Development Lag the Innovation Curve?
Are open source developers on the ball about delivering alternatives to cutting-edge proprietary products and services, or do they lag the proprietary innovators? Sam Dean suggests that open source developers don't deliver key products in key categories fast enough and considers why this development lag exists.
Open Core and the Open Source Business Model Debate
The past few weeks have seen a resurgence in the debate over whether or not open core is a valid open source business model or not. There has been a lot of passionate and pragmatic discourse from lots of knowledgeable people. Stephen Walli considers the issues.
