Workshop on OSS with TT perspectives Meeting of the TT Network Board and Steering Committee Friday 10 December 2010 Bernard DENIS

Outline Workshop content and contributors Necessary measures Choosing a license Industry perspective and commercialization options Financing maintenance and support Available tools OSS workshop with TT perspective

Workshop content and contributors Necessary measures Choosing a license Industry perspective and commercialization options Financing maintenance and support Available tools

Workshop content and contributors OSS Policies OSS in academia Experience, needs and expectations Industry experience in using OSS OSS licenses Doing business with OSS WIPO, INRIA, CERN CERN/BE, GEANT, GEANT4, ROOT, IN2P3, GSI Morgan Stanley, NTNU, Ernst & Young, Blumbach & Zinngrebe, DLA Piper Blumbach & Zinngrebe, DLA Piper, OSS watch OSS workshop with TT perspective

Workshop content and contributors Necessary measures Choosing a license Industry perspective and commercialization options Financing maintenance and support Available tools

Necessary measures - general Efficient and centralized governance: Decision making (including the license scheme) Maintain coherence Democratic versus dictatorship OSS workshop with TT perspective

Necessary measures - general Anticipate the end at the start How the software will be used and disseminated Need to maintain a clear legal status Ownership Nature (first, derived, composed) Contract affecting the status of SW SW audit at the beginning and during the project OSS workshop with TT perspective

Necessary measures - general Raise awareness on: IPR license ownership issue (employment contract, collaboration agreements, …) Make legal advise available (as opposed to opinion) OSS workshop with TT perspective

Necessary measures - general Good development practices: Track and record external code integrated Identify all contributors Strict “header” (copyright statement) management (in-house and external software) Encourage modular software Common development environment (e.g. Forge) OSS workshop with TT perspective

Necessary measures - TT Need a clear transfer scheme/strategy on the case by case basis Clear legal status Proper packaging Need for quality Support for user should be available OSS workshop with TT perspective

Necessary measures Have a OSS policy but keep it simple! OSS workshop with TT perspective

Workshop content and contributors Necessary measures Choosing a license Industry perspective and commercialization options Financing maintenance and support Available tools

Choosing a license - options Making software available using permissive license (BSD) Free but no so free (integration and maintain it yourself) “as-is” but also quality Developer-oriented Do not contain patent provisions (except Apache) OSS workshop with TT perspective

Choosing a license - options Making software available using a non- permissive license (copyleft) (GPL) Feedback, bug fixes, comment, translation (reciprocity) Quality (reputation) Not-industry friendly(?) OSS workshop with TT perspective

Choosing a license - options Making software available under semi- permissive license (LGPL): Many user from industry providing interesting feedbacks (but rarely code contribution) User oriented/quality OSS workshop with TT perspective

Choosing a license - options Use existing license Choosing the type of license when collaborating on software development At the beginning, when the transfer scheme is clear At the end, depending on the code included Note: the legal issues have an impact on the technical issues e.g. there is an architectural impact of using GPL software OSS workshop with TT perspective

Choosing a license - limitations Can you start with OSS and then impose restrictions? Depends on the license If GPL no further restrictions a can be imposed. GPL license does not allow the modification of the license itself. Under OSS it is not possible to limit the purpose of use of a software. It is however possible to have a non-commercial license with limits on the use based on a OSS license (except GPL) Note: when the sofwtare is out, there is no way to step back OSS workshop with TT perspective

Choosing a license - liability Can you be liable for OSS used for medical applications? Yes, you may be liable because the license exclusion clause may not be valid in the EU. GPLv3 allows to amend the license on this specific point (use exclusion of EUPL) This risk should not be a reason not to do OSS. For medical applications, you should use a good liability clause (no more OSS!) OSS workshop with TT perspective

Workshop content and contributors Necessary measures Choosing a license Industry perspective and commercialization options Financing maintenance and support Available tools

Industry perspective and commercialisation options Commercialisation options: Using different license fee depending on the user (academic or commercial) Dual license (difficulty when many contributors) Software as a Service (SaaS) Use of GPL SW for internal purpose Multi-licensing business (user segmentation) Open-core licensing OSS workshop with TT perspective

Motivations Possibility to have high quality software and collaboration with a community of motivated developers Learning effect and reputation gain in the developers’ community Lower costs and faster time to market Note: Importance of active and supportive community (permissive license) OSS workshop with TT perspective Industry perspective and commercialisation options

Other issues/comments: “GPL is a challenge… “ <> “No GPL here!” Different of OSS adoption level: from open innovation up to community building Legal uncertainty, many stories around OSS workshop with TT perspective Industry perspective and commercialisation options

OSS workshop with TT perspective Workshop content and contributors Necessary measures Choosing a license Industry perspective and commercialization options Financing maintenance and support Available tools

Financing maintenance and support Goodwill of developers Provide remunerated service Generate interest by releasing early to attract funding Create a foundation/trust for long term and big projects (also used to manage the copyright issues, licensing and marketing) OSS workshop with TT perspective

Workshop content and contributors Necessary measures Choosing a license Industry perspective and commercialization options Financing maintenance and support Available tools

Free software directory and tools Tool to analyse source and reprots its licensing OSS workshop with TT perspective

Concluding remark Permissive Non-permissive (open) (viral) OSS workshop with TT perspective Industry-friendly Truly-open BSD, Apache, CeCILL LGPLGPL, EUPL

OSS workshop with TT perspective Thank you!