1. © 2006 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice Open Source Software A Commercial Perspective Dr. Robert Tansley Digital Media Systems Department, HP

2. 3 February 2006Open Repositories, Sydney2 Overview Licence, copyright Dimensions of open source − Centralised vs distributed development − Audience − Sustainability Commercial companies and open source Thoughts for this community

3. 3 February 2006Open Repositories, Sydney3 Copyright and Licensing

4. 3 February 2006Open Repositories, Sydney4 Open Source in the context of other “no-charge” software freeware Sun SCSL Microsoft shared source source code available binary-only source with limitations OSS many java libraries no-charge software GNU GPL Apache BSD shareware Adobe Reader

5. 3 February 2006Open Repositories, Sydney5 The copyright is owned by the person who wrote the particular lines of code (or the author’s employer). Example: − The Linux kernel includes code from hundreds of contributors. − Thus, for the Linux kernel, there are hundreds of copyright owners. In a small number of projects, the contributors assign their copyright to a single entity − for example, certain GNU tools are owned by the Free Software Foundation. Software is Covered by Copyright

6. 3 February 2006Open Repositories, Sydney6 Role for licences But, default copyright rules would be an impediment − Software is automatically subject to copyright − Author’s permission is required for copying, modifying, distributing

7. 3 February 2006Open Repositories, Sydney7 Two types of Open Source licences GNU LGPL MIT IBM Mozilla W3C Apache no impact on other code copyleft GNU GPL OSS BSD

8. 3 February 2006Open Repositories, Sydney8 Example: Simple Licence Copyright (c) Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. MIT Licence

9. 3 February 2006Open Repositories, Sydney9 Example: Complex Licence GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENCE

10. 3 February 2006Open Repositories, Sydney10 Licensing challenges Technical choices have legal implications Employees, faculty, students routinely making licensing decisions that would previously be made by procurement/legal depts You need to do what the licence requires in order to have the permission provided by the licence − maintain copyright notices and copy of licence − acknowledgement of the original author − making source code available − non-assertion of patents − termination triggers

11. 3 February 2006Open Repositories, Sydney11 Dimensions of Open Source

12. 3 February 2006Open Repositories, Sydney12 Centralised and Distributed Development, Control A continuum, not a binary choice Distributed development, centralised control − Linux kernel Centralised development, centralised control − Jena RDF toolkit Distributed development, distributed control − Apache Cocoon

13. 3 February 2006Open Repositories, Sydney13 Audience Sliding scale Developers (GCC compiler) − Developers and users are the same Technical users (HTTPD) − Developers and users might be different, some overlap, but can talk a common language End users (Firefox browser) − Users don’t want to know anything about development

14. 3 February 2006Open Repositories, Sydney14 Sustainability models Again, sliding scale Paid for/centrally funded − JBoss Organisations − Apache Sufficient community interest − GAim

15. 3 February 2006Open Repositories, Sydney15 Commercial Companies and Open Source

16. 3 February 2006Open Repositories, Sydney16 What companies like about OSS It’s free stuff Lowers development costs − Can share load of testing, bug fixing with others Potentially limitless lifespan Promotes and enables reuse Access to a like-minded community to discuss needs, problems, issues, ideas – keeps you up to date − Enables collaboration OSS development methodology similar to research methodology, rather than “classic” development

17. 3 February 2006Open Repositories, Sydney17 What companies like about OSS Create/explore new markets, expand existing markets − Raises awareness of you and your interest in that area − Quickly adapts to emerging needs − Promote standards − Customers familiar with product, comfortable − Serves as an experimental platform/test bed, deployment channel Potential for services revenue Customers don’t feel “locked in”

18. 3 February 2006Open Repositories, Sydney18 Why companies worry about OSS It’s a free product Everyone expects you to take care of all the bug testing, bug fixing People stealing your ideas Have to work harder to differentiate − Hard to “lock in” potential customers Potential lack of control Sustainability − Dependency on other stakeholders − Need critical mass of contribution (developer, QA resources) − For every tool/component/module Different, unknown business model

19. 3 February 2006Open Repositories, Sydney19 For this community Do you want commercial companies involved? If so, how? This is affected by and influences licence choice, audience, sustainability models − Rely on commercial involvement? − Require companies to share source, changes? − Allow companies to sell the product? − Allow companies to generate and protect IP? − Companies involved in technical steering, governance?

20. 3 February 2006Open Repositories, Sydney20 Summary Key benefits of OSS for commercial companies − Lower development costs − Access to large community - Collaboration and awareness − Create new markets − Test bed, deployment channel for research Key challenges/risks to manage − Ensuring long-term sustainability No one wants to be left sole stakeholder Need sufficient influence − Ensuring critical mass of resources for QA, debugging, docs Need to consider these if you think commercial companies are important for your open source project