Using Open Source for Strategic Advantage Alfred H. Essa CIO, MIT Sloan EDUCAUSE Live! April 28 th, 2004

EDUCAUSE Live!2 Topics our common challenges opportunities analytical framework demystifying open source sample projects predictions and conclusions

EDUCAUSE Live!3 First Things… What is the open source value proposition?

EDUCAUSE Live!4 The Agnostics Leap --- Casey Green, Campus Computing Project I remain agnostic about open source: I dont know if it can make the leap from specific, discrete back-room applications (think Apache server software) to complex applications intended for those of us who do not have computer science degrees.

EDUCAUSE Live!5 The Agnostics Dilemma We need to develop creative, collaborative solutions to the dilemma of maintenance and support in our shared software development initiatives. --- Annie Stunden, CIO Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison

EDUCAUSE Live!6 Our Common Challenges technical complexity stakeholder complexity balancing costs and sustainability educational technology in the enterprise sources of value and innovation

EDUCAUSE Live!7 Opportunities innovation peer review new generation web learning communities

EDUCAUSE Live!8 Analytical Framework lock-in the innovators dilemma user-innovation communities intellectual commons intellectual property

EDUCAUSE Live!9 Recognizing and Managing Lock-in Brand Selection Sampling Entrenchment Lock-In

EDUCAUSE Live!10 Technology Disruption

EDUCAUSE Live!11 User-Innovation Communities User innovation communities have a great advantage over the manufacturer-centered innovation development systems that have been the mainstay of commerce for hundreds of years: they enable each using entity, whether an individual or a corporation, to develop exactly what it wants rather than relying on a manufacturer to as its (often very imperfect) agent. Moreover, individual users do not have to develop everything they need on their own: they can benefit from innovations developed by others and freely shared within the user community. Eric Von Hippel, MIT

EDUCAUSE Live!12 Intellectual Commons law markets architecture norms

EDUCAUSE Live!13 Intellectual Property: The Spectre of Litigation SCO vs IBM Acacia Media Technologies, Test.Com and patent claims

EDUCAUSE Live!14 Senses of Open Source license software development model intellectual commons disruptive innovation

EDUCAUSE Live!15 Open Source License roots in free software, Richard Stallman free implies freedom, i.e. the freedom to copy, modify, and distribute the software a fundamental divide among open source licenses, copy-left and reciprocity

EDUCAUSE Live!16 Open Source Software Development Model The real beauty of open source is not the license, it is the process. --- Martin Fink, HP

EDUCAUSE Live!17 Open Source as an Intellectual Commons reciprocity in copy-left means that creator benefits from improvements, generating a positive feedback loop intellectual commons (my interpretation) also means that the underlying infrastructure for innovation is not proprietary

EDUCAUSE Live!18 Open Source as Disruptive Innovation some open source projects have signatures of disruptive technological innovation but will they be able to bridge the agnostics leap (Casey Green) and the agnostics dilemma (Annie Stunden) ? if so, which ones?

EDUCAUSE Live!19 Open Source Risks user interface design documentation support feature-centric development programming for the self religion intellectual property

EDUCAUSE Live!20 Sample Projects Open CourseWare, Merlot (content) uPortal DSpace Sakai.LRN

EDUCAUSE Live!21 Predictions and Conclusions