Presentation: To Open Source Or Not, That Is the Question, SCU, 2012-09-20
This is the presentation material for the talk on
"To Open Source Or Not, That Is the Question" at Santa Clara University, 2012-09-20. Peter Thoeny prepared this talk as food for thought
for companies who consider open sourcing some of their software.
See also: What is TWiki,
TWiki presentation,
public TWiki sites,
TWiki screenshots,
TWiki.org Blog
| | Copyright © 2012 by TWiki.org. This presentation may be reproduced as long as the copyright notice is retained and a link is provided back to http://twiki.org/. | | |
Slide 1: To Open Source Or Not, That Is the Question
Presentation for Santa Clara University, 2012-09-20
-- Peter Thoeny
-
peter09@thoenyPLEASENOSPAM.org
-
TWiki.org
Slide 2: About Peter
- Peter Thoeny
- CTO and Founder of TWiki, the open source wiki for the enterprise, managing the project for 14 years
- Invented the concept of structured wikis - where free form wiki content can be structured with tailored wiki applications
- Recognized thought-leader in wikis and social software, featured in numerous articles and technology conferences including LinuxWorld, Business Week, Wall Street Journal and more
- Graduate of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich
- Lived in Japan for 8 years, developing CASE tools
- Now in the Silicon Valley for 14 years
- Co-author of Wikis for Dummies book
Slide 3: Agenda
- Crowdsourced Wikipedia
- What is TWiki?
- TWiki Open Source Community
- Open Source: Rewards and Risks
- Commercial Open Source
- Open Source Licenses
- Dual Licensing
- Open Source License vs. Copyright vs. Brand
Slide 4: Crowdsourced Wikipedia
- Wikipedia: Wiki + Encyclopedia
- A free encyclopedia written collaboratively by you
- Project started in January 2001
- The most active public wiki: 4,000,000 articles and 14,000,000 registered users in the English language Wikipedia alone (ref. Wikipedia statistics)
- Anyone in the world can edit any page.
- Doesn't that lead to chaos?
- Domain experts contribute
- Well defined policies for contributing and handling content
- BUT: Reality of edit wars, and larger interest groups overpowering smaller groups
- Graffiti gets removed quickly (many eye balls; rollback available)
- Content can be freely distributed and reproduced under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL)
Slide 5: Wikipedia Contributions = Open Source Principals
- Publish early and often
- Democratic and open: Anyone can contribute
- Robust: Mistake happen, can be fixed quickly
- Scale: Domain experts
- Quality: Peer review
Slide 6: What is TWiki?
- TWiki is a wiki engine and wiki application platform, established in 1998
- TWiki is specifically built for the workplace
- Large number of TWiki Extensions: 200+ actively maintained extensions
- Open Source software (GPL) with active community, hosted at http://TWiki.org/
- 4,000+ downloads per month, 600,000 total downloads, estimate 50,000+ installations, 130+ countries
- Est. $27M of human capital invested (ref. Ohloh)
- Source Forge 2009 "Best Enterprise Project" Finalist (among 230,000 open source projects)
Slide 7: Competitive Landscape of Wikis & Enterprise 2.0
Slide 8: Enterprise 2.0 & Structured Wiki Applications
Slide 9: Example: Sales Pipeline Tracker
Slide 10: TWiki Open Source Community
Slide 11: Evolution of TWiki.org Community Governance
Slide 12: TWiki.org Code of Conduct
- Be considerate.
- Be respectful.
- Be collaborative.
- When you disagree, consult others.
- When you are unsure, ask for help.
- Step down considerately.
Slide 13: The Right To Fork
- Software fork: Developers take a copy of source code from one software package and start independent development on it, creating a distinct piece of software.
- Fork as development branch, vs. split in the developer community.
- Friendly fork vs. hostile fork.
- Free and open source software:
- Right to fork from the original development team without prior permission without violating any copyright law.
- Commercial software:
- Fork happen too (e.g. Unix)
Slide 14: Open Source: Rewards and Risks
- Rewards:
Fast pace development
Innovation
Scale
Serendipity
What else? Let's talk!
- Risks:
Community build-up =>
"Art of Community" book
Quality =>
Community governance, release process
Less control =>
Community governance
Trolls =>
Community governance
What else? Let's talk!
Slide 15: Commercial Open Source
- Commercial open source[1]
- vs. community open source
- Model of Fedora/Red Hat, Zimbra, MySQL
- vs. Debian, PostgreSQL, ...
- Criteria for success:
- Market share, pace of innovation, health of community
[1] The Commercial Open Source Business Model by Dirk Riehle
Slide 16: Open Source Licenses
- Princpal: License to make the source code of software available for everyone to use, review & modify.
- Free: Free to use, modify and redistribute without having to pay the original author.
- Commercial use? Some licenses allow commercial use.
- Open Source Initiative (OSI): Approves open source licenses
Slide 17: Dual Licensing
- Definition: Release the same software under two (or more) licenses.
- Prerequisite: Only works if company owns 100% of intellectual property.
- Example: MySQL
- Business model:
- Release software under GPL
Free distribution
Build brand
Serendipity
- Release same software under commercial license
No GPL contamination
Revenue for vendor & customer
Slide 18: Open Source License vs. Copyright vs. Brand
- Open source license: What you can do; how you can redistribute the software.
- Copyright: Who owns the intellectual property of the software.
- Trademark: Who is allowed to use the brand name for commercial purposes.
Slide 19: Questions & Discussions
This presentation: http://bit.ly/twPres12
(http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Codev/TWikiPresentation2012x09x20)
Slide 20: BACKUP SLIDES - TWiki I/O Architecture
Slide 21: Role of Wiki Champion
- A wiki champion is a person who:
- understands the process of the work for a given project or business (the domain), and
- knows how to use a wiki (best practices in collaboration)
- The wiki champion is coaching the employees
- Advocate, important role especially in the initial phase of a wiki
- Typically a part time role
- As the wikis gets larger and grows laterally, new wiki champions emerge
Slide 22: Initial Deployment of a Wiki
- Plan content and rollout
- Build initial structure
- Populate initial content with help from early adopters
- Initial rollout with smaller group
- Train and coach users
- Do not underestimate inertia and time
- Expect quick growth after slow start
Slide 23: Be Aware of Mental Barriers
- Wikis can be intimidating; the wiki pages appear "official" and corporate
- Overcome your own internal resistance to edit existing content
- Paradigm shift: Content is owned by team, not individual
- I want my contributions to be near "perfect"
- It is more effective to post content early and let the team provide feedback and revise it iteratively
Notes
| | Copyright © 2012 by TWiki.org. This presentation may be reproduced as long as the copyright notice is retained and a link is provided back to http://twiki.org/. | | |
See also: What is TWiki,
TWiki presentation,
public TWiki sites,
TWiki screenshots,
TWiki.org Blog
--
PeterThoeny - 2012-09-20
Comments