digital sustainability of open source communities

Digital sustainability of open source communitiesFOSSC Oman, 19 February 2015 1

Digital sustainability of open source communities

Dr. Matthias Stürmer

Head of Research Center for Digital Sustainability at the

Institute of Information Systems at University of Bern

Free and Open Source Software Conference FOSSC Oman

19 February 2015 in Muscat, Oman


Research Center for Digital Sustainability

Research, teaching and consulting on

● Open Source Software: Community governance, business models etc.

● Open Data: Visualization apps, open finance, participatory budgeting etc.

● Open Government: open government apps, Open Government Partnership etc.

● Net politics: net neutrality, copyright, data security, Internet governance etc.

● IT procurement: vendor dependencies, transparency, WTO regulations etc.

Dr. Matthias StürmerHead of the Research Centerfor Digital Sustainability

University of BernInstitute of Information SystemsEngehaldenstrasse 8CH-3012 BernSwitzerland

Office phone: +41 31 631 38 09Swiss mobile: +41 76 368 81 65Oman mobile: +968 9669 3607matthias.stuermer@iwi.unibe.chwww.digitale-nachhaltigkeit.unibe.ch

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.digitale-nachhaltigkeit.unibe.ch/


Agenda

1. The concept of digital sustainability

2. A historic example of digital sustainability

3. Elements of a sustainable open source community

4. Conclusions


Definition of 'sustainability'

Original idea of sustainability: Only cut as much wood so it can grow again.(Hans Carl von Carlowitz, 1713)

Today's definition of sustainable development from the United Nation's Brundtlandt report:

„Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.“Source: Our Common Future (Brundtland Report) 1987 United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development


Differenty types of sustainability

EcologicalSustainability




SocialSustainability





EconomicSustainability





EconomicSustainability

DigitalSustainability


What is digital sustainability?

Definition of digital sustainability:

● Digital resources are handled sustainably if their utility for society is maximized, so that digital needs of contemporary and future generations are equally met.

● Digital needs are optimally met if resources are accessible to the largest number and reuseable with minimal restrictions.

● Digital resources encompass knowledge and cultural artefacts represented in digital form, e.g. text, image, audio, video, or software.

In German: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digitale_Nachhaltigkeit

Source: Marcus Dapp, 2013. Open Government Data and Free Software – Cornerstones of a Digital Sustainability Agenda. In The 2013 Open Reader – Stories and articles inspired by OKCon 2013: Open Data, Broad, Deep, Connected.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digitale_Nachhaltigkeit


Classification of goods

Rivalry

Access

Source: N. Gregory Mankiw, Principles of Economics, Dryden 1998.



Rivalrynon-rivalrousrivalrous

excludable

non-excludable

Access




Private Good Club Good

CommonResources

Public Good


excludable

non-excludable

Access




Private Good Club Good

CommonResources


Public Good


excludable

non-excludable

Accesse.g. proprietary software

e.g. open source software


Characteristics of digital sustainability

1. Intergenerational justice: No legal obstacles

2. Regenerative capacity: Distributed tacit knowledge

3. Economic use of resources: Reuse of digital assets

4. Risk reduction: No firm dependencies, transparency

5. Absorptive capacity: Comprehensible content

6. Highest added value: Ideal policy conditions

Source: Stuermer, M. 2014 Characteristics of Digital Sustainability – Proceedings of The 8th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance ICEGOV 2014 – Link

http://www.stuermer.ch/maemst/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/2014_Stuermer_CharacteristicsOfDigitalSustainability.pdf


Why not 'informational sustainability'?

Source: IDC's Digital Universe Study, sponsored by EMC, December 2012http://www.emc.com/collateral/analyst-reports/idc-the-digital-universe-in-2020.pdf

Today's information is digital:

http://www.emc.com/collateral/analyst-reports/idc-the-digital-universe-in-2020.pdf


Agenda




4. Conclusions


Voyager Golden Record (1977)

● Gramophone records included in Voyager 1 and 2 spacecrafts

● A „bottle in the cosmic ocean“ intended to communicate to extra-terrestrials a story of the world of humans on Earth

● Content: 116 images, natural sounds, classical music, spoken languages

● Travelling at 60'000 km/h, now around 20 billion km away

● In about 40'000 years Voyager 1 and 2 will be within 1.8 light-years of other stars

Source: NASA, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record


Method how to read the content

Source: NASA, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record

EXPLANATION OF RECORDING COVER DIAGRAM

THE DIAGRAMS BELOW DEFINE THE VIDEO PORTION OF THE RECORDING

GENERAL APPEARANCE OF WAVE FORM OF VIDEO SIGNALS FOUND ON THE RECORDING

BINARY CODE TELLS TIME OF THE SCAN (~8 msec)

SCAN TRIGGERING

VIDEO IMAGE FRAME SHOWING DIRECTION OF SCAN. BINARY CODE INDICATES TIME OF EACH SCAN SWEEP (512 VERTICAL LINES PER COMPLETE PICTURE)

IF PROPERLY DECODED, THE FIRST IMAGE WHICH WILL APPEAR IS A CIRCLE

THIS DIAGRAM ILLUSTRATES THE TWO LOWEST STATES OF THE HYDROGEN ATOM. THE VERTICAL LINES WITH THE DOTS INDICATE THE SPIN MOMENTS OF THE PROTON AND ELECTRON. THE TRANSITION TIME FROM ONE STATE TO THE OTHER PROVIDES THE FUNDAMENTAL CLOCK REFERENCE USED IN ALL THE COVER DIAGRAMS AND DECODED PICTURES.

THIS DIAGRAM DEFINES THE LOCATION OF OUR SUN UTILIZING 14 PULSARS OF KNOWN DIRECTIONS FROM OUR SUN. THE BINARY CODE DEFINES THE FREQUENCY OF THE PULSES.

PLAYING TIME, ONE SIDE = ~1 hour

ELEVATION VIEW OF RECORD

ELEVATION VIEW OF CARTRIDGE

PICTORIAL PLAN VIEW OF RECORD

OUTLINE OF CARTRIDGE WITH STYLUS TO PLAY RECORD (FURNISHED ON

SPACECRAFT)

BINARY CODE DEFINING PROPER SPEED (3.6 seconds/ROTATION) TO TURN THE RECORD (|=BINARY 1, ―= BINARY 0) EXPRESSED IN 0.70 × 10-9 seconds, THE TIME PERIOD ASSOCIATED WITH THE FUNDAMENTAL TRANSITION OF THE HYDROGEN ATOM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record


Images on the Golden Record

Source: http://re-lab.net/welcome/images.html

http://re-lab.net/welcome/images.html


Requirements for digital sustainability

What is needed to provide digital sustainability?

1. Data itself

2. Data format specification

3. Method how to read the data

4. Data storage hardware

5. Data player device


Agenda




4. Conclusions


Growth of open source projects

Source: 2014 Future of Open Source - 8th Annual Survey results http://www.slideshare.net/mjskok/2014-future-of-open-source-8th-annual-survey-results

http://www.slideshare.net/mjskok/2014-future-of-open-source-8th-annual-survey-results


Mozilla Firefox

Source: Sebastian Spaeth, Matthias Stuermer, Stefan Haefliger, Georg von Krogh 2007 „Sampling in Open Source Software Development: The case for using the Debian GNU/Linux Distribution“

As an Example of Package Dependencies in Debian: The Graph of Mozilla FirefoxUNIX command: apt-cache dotty firefox | dot -Tps > dependencygraph_firefox.ps


Elements of asustainable open source community

A) Good governance

B) Heterogeneous community

C) Nonprofit foundation (doing marketing)

D) Ecosystem of commercial service providers

E) Opportunity for users to get things done


Good governance

● Transparent decision processes, participative culture

● Successful example: Eclipse community initiated by IBM

Source: Spaeth, S., Stuermer, M. and von Krogh, G. (2010) ‘Enabling knowledge creation through outsiders: towards a push model of open innovation’, Int. J. Technology Management, Vol. 52, Nos. 3/4, pp.411–431.

Launch of theEclipse Foundation

Release of sourcecode by IBM


Bad governance may result in a fork

● Unfriendly separation of an open source community (mostly)● Important sword of damocles of open source projects

– Necessary if initiator or another central player missuses his control– Sometimes necessary for radical innovations (OpenSSL - LibreSSL)

Some famous examples of open source forks:


History of OpenOffice.org etc.

Source: Presentation of Apache OpenOffice at OSB Alliance Workshop, 30 October 2013 in Stuttgart


LibreOffice fork of OpenOffice.org

Source: Jonas Gamalielsson/Björn Lundell, Sustainability of Open Source software communities beyond a fork: How and why has the LibreOffice project evolved? The Journal of Systems and Software 89 (2014) 128– 145



A) Good governance






Linux kernel development

Source: YouTube Video „Linux Kernel Development Visualization (git commit history - past 6 weeks - june 02 2012)“ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_02QGsHzEQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_02QGsHzEQ


Linux contributions by companies

Source: Linux Foundation, February 2015 „Linux Kernel Development How Fast is it Going, Who is Doing It, What Are They Doing and Who is Sponsoring the Work“ http://www.linuxfoundation.org/publications/linux-foundation/who-writes-linux-2015

Top 10 companies contributing to the kernel from 2013-09-02 till 2014-12-07:

Voluntary, unpaid contributors

http://www.linuxfoundation.org/publications/linux-foundation/who-writes-linux-2015


Linux kernel facts

Source: Linux Foundation, February 2015 „Linux Kernel Development How Fast is it Going, Who is Doing It, What Are They Doing and Who is Sponsoring the Work“ http://www.linuxfoundation.org/publications/linux-foundation/who-writes-linux-2015

● Linux kernel development is one of thelargest cooperative software projects ever

● Over 10'000 patches for each kernel release, kernel updates every 2-3 months

● Since 2005 some 11'800 individual developers from nearly 1200 different companies contributed to the kernel

● Distributor kernels contain relatively few distribution-specific changes

● At least 80% of developers are paid to work on Linux

http://www.linuxfoundation.org/publications/linux-foundation/who-writes-linux-2015


Diverse motivations

Why do individuals develop open source software?

Source: Georg von Krogh, Stefan Haefliger, Sebastian Spaeth, and Martin W. Wallin "Carrots and Rainbows: Motivation and Social Practice in Open Source Software Development" MIS Quarterly 2012, Vol 36 Issue 2, pp. 649-676

IdeologyAltruism

KinshipFun

Reputation

ReciprocityLearning

Own-useCareer

Pay

Intrinsic motivation

Extrinsic motivation



A) Good governance






Nonprofit association

● Many large open source communities have an nonprofit umbrella organization: Linux, Apache, Eclipse, Gnome, KDE, Mozilla, Python, TYPO3 etc.

● Association/foundation takes care of

– Legal issues (copyright, committer agreements, liability etc.)

– Community building events (conferences, hackathons etc.)

– Documentation (end users, developers, statistics etc.)

– Public relations and marketing

● So why is marketing so important?


Because today's big software corporations are

marketing companies!


Marketing vs. R&D at Adobe

Sales and marketing FY 2014: 1.6 billion $ → 53% of expensesResearch and development FY 2014: 0.8 billion $ → 27% of expenses

Source: ADOBE SYSTEMS INC. FY2014 Form 10-K http://www.adobe.com/investor-relations/financial-documents.html

http://www.adobe.com/investor-relations/financial-documents.html


Marketing&Admin vs. R&D at Apple

Sales and administration FY 2014: 12.0 billion $ → 67% of expensesResearch and development FY 2014: 6.0 billion $ → 33% of expenses

Source: APPLE INC. Form 10-K for FY14 http://investor.apple.com

http://investor.apple.com/


Marketing vs. R&D at Oracle


Source: ORACLE CORP FY 2014 FORM 10-K, http://investor.oracle.com/financial-reporting/sec-filings/default.aspx

http://investor.oracle.com/financial-reporting/sec-filings/default.aspx


Marketing vs. R&D at Microsoft


Source: MICROSOFT CORP. 2014 10-K, http://www.microsoft.com/investor/AnnualReports/default.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/investor/AnnualReports/default.aspx


Conclusion:

Do more marketing for open source projects!


Time is ready to sell open source

Time

Functionality

Average customer requirementse.g. for office suiteor database

Today

Proprietary producte.g. Microsoft Office or Oracle database

10 years ago

Open source producte.g. LibreOffice or PostgreSQL

Source: Diagram from Clayton M. Christensen „The Innovator's Dilemma“ (1997) adapted to open source context



A) Good governance






Business models with open source

1. Custom development - Customers pay for the software to becustomized to meet their specific requirements.

2. Services/support - Ad hoc support calls, service, training and consulting contracts.

3. Support subscriptions - An annual, repeatable support and service agreement.

4. Value-added subscriptions - An annual, repeatable support and service agreement with additional features/functionality delivered as a service.

5. Software as a service (SaaS) - Paid access to and use of the software via hosted or cloud services.

6. Complementary products and services - Open source software is not used to directly generate revenue; instead, complementary products provide revenue.

7. Advertising - Software is free to use and is funded by associated advertising.

8. Closed source licenses - For a version of the full project, a larger software package, hardware appliance based on the project, or extensions to the open source core.

Source: Future of Open Source Survey https://www.blackducksoftware.com/future-of-open-source

https://www.blackducksoftware.com/future-of-open-source


OSS Directory

Website: www.ossdirectory.org

Relational database of (2015-02-18)● 422 open source products (projects)● 298 open source service providers● 304 open source success stories

Daily approx. 150 Unique Visitors and 800 views and requests per day

News, articles, events, jobs, videos, weeklynewsletter etc. about open source software

French translation available since 2014, English coming 2015

http://www.ossdirectory.org/



A) Good governance






Opportunity for users to get things done

How can users influence development in case the programmershave no „itch“ to work on certain things?






IdeologyAltruism

KinshipFun

Reputation

ReciprocityLearning

Own-useCareer


Extrinsicmotivation

Pay


A) Open source feature requests e.g. on www.bountysource.com

Source: https://www.bountysource.com

https://www.bountysource.com/


B) Project-specific feature lists e.g. ILIAS E-Learning System

Source: How To Suggest A New Featurehttp://www.ilias.de/docu/goto.php?target=wiki_1357_How_to_suggest_a_new_feature

http://www.ilias.de/docu/goto.php?target=wiki_1357_How_to_suggest_a_new_feature


C) Institutional crowd-funding initiative

● Overcoming the 'collective action' problem in open source

● Group of professional users of open source office suites in order to bridge the gap between users and developers

● Under the umbrella of the OSB Alliance, organized as Working Group Office Interoperability

● Goals of the group:

– Prioritization and specification of requirements from the user perspective

– Coordinated funding of requirements

– Exchange of experience amongprofessional users

Source: Website of OSB Alliance Working Group Office Interoperabilityhttp://www.osb-alliance.de/en/working-groups/wg-office-interoperability/

http://www.osb-alliance.de/en/working-groups/wg-office-interoperability/


Process of institutional crowd-funding

Phase 1: Initializationa) Mobilize interest of institutional open source software users, find funding for specificationb) Create clear and common understanding of the issues, ask the expertsc) Result: aggregated requirements, clustered as Use Cases within a specification

Phase 3: Implementationa) Define project management, sign contracts, start implementingb) Do testing among open source software users, finalize developmentc) Result: Publish new source code, pass it upstream to the open source project

Phase 2: Fundinga) Publish specification as Request for Proposal (RfP), invite comanies to offerb) Evaluate and decide for best proposal(s)c) Result: find funding from institutional open source software users for each Use

Case to implement the specification

Continue only if previous phase is completed successfully

Continue only if previous phase is completed successfully


Example of institutional crowd-funding

Goal: Improving OOXML interoperability in LibreOffice

Public Institutions● City of Freiburg i.B.● City of München● City of Jena● Swiss Federal Court● Federal Steering Unit for IT (ISB)● Canton of Vaud● Another Swiss federal agency

Coordinated byWorking Group Office Interoperability ofOpen Source Business Alliance OSBA


Funding model

SUSE

Lanedo

Development funded by● City of Freiburg i.B.● City of München● City of Jena● Swiss Federal Court● Federal Steering

Unit for IT (ISB)● Canton of Vaud● Another Swiss federal

agency● French ministry

of culture and communication

Ernst & Young

EUR 50kEUR 13k

EUR 13k

EUR 4kEUR 8k

EUR 15k

EUR 14k

EUR 25k

Total: approx. EUR 140k (excl. VAT)


Agenda




4. Conclusions


Conclusions

Elements of a sustainable open source community:

1. Good governance:Manage your community in a fair way.

2. Heterogeneous community:Foster diversity within your community.

3. Nonprofit foundation:Empower the central office of your community.(and do as much professional marketing as possible)

4. Ecosystem of commercial service providers:Support companies to provide services for the software.

5. Opportunity for users to get things done:Provide feature request market place or something similar.


...so YOUR open source project will continue to fly for millions of years!

Source: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_2

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_2