digital sustainability of open source communities

Digital sustainability of open source communities2 October 2014 1

Digital sustainability of open source communities

Dr. Matthias Stürmer

Head of Research Center for Digital Sustainability at theInstitute of Information Systems at University of Bern

www.digitale-nachhaltigkeit.unibe.ch

2 October 2014

10th Semantic MediaWiki ConferenceSMWCon Fall 2014 in Vienna

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


Research Center forDigital 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 StürmerPost-doc andHead of the Research Centerfor Digital Sustainability University of BernInstitute of Information SystemsChair of Information ManagementEngehaldenstrasse 8CH-3012 Bern

Phone: +41 31 631 38 09Mobile: +41 76 368 81 65matthias.stuermer@iwi.unibe.chwww.digitale-nachhaltigkeit.unibe.ch

mailto:[email protected]

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


Agenda

1. A historic example of digital sustainability

2. The concept of digital sustainability

3. Knowledge perspective in open source communities

4. Elements of a sustainable open source community

5. Conclusions and topics for discussion


Pioneer Plaque (1972)

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

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


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


Sustainability of information

What is needed to provide sustainable information?

1. Data itself

2. Data format specification

3. Method how to read the data

4. Data storage hardware

5. Data player device


Agenda







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 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

DigitalSustainability


Definition of 'digital sustainability'

Marcus Dapp defines:

● 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: Dapp, M. 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

Private Good Club Good

CommonResources

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

Public Good

Rivalrynon-rivalrousrivalrous

excludable

non-excludable

Accesse.g. proprietary software

e.g. open source software


Characteristics of digital sustainability

1. Intergenerational justiceNo legal obstacles

2. Regenerative capacityDistributed tacit knowledge

3. Economic use of resourcesReuse of digital assets

4. Risk reductionNo firm dependencies, transparent architecture

5. Absorptive capacityComprehensible content

6. Highest added valueIdeal 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


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

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


Agenda







Knowledge management theory

● Explicit knowledge

– Raw data, databases, documents, multimedia, source code

– Easy to transfer because it is documented

● Tacit knowledge

– Intuition, experience, skills (speaking languages etc.)

– Difficult to transfer because it 'sticks' within individuals

● Organizational learning

– Knowledge creation, acquisition, diffusion etc.

– Knowledge transformations within organizations


Organizational learning

Source: Nonaka, I. (1994). A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation. Organization Science. Vol. 5, No. 1, pp.14-37.Drawing from http://gotogemba.com/tag/tacit-knowledge/

http://gotogemba.com/tag/tacit-knowledge/


Knowledge in open source communities

What does this mean for open source communities?

● Source code is publicly available explicit knowledge

● Know-how about the source code is tacit knowledge

● An open source community has collective intelligence

● Open source projects consist of many components


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


Agenda







Growing 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


Elements of asustainable open source community

A) Good governance

B) Heterogeneous community

C) Non-for-profit foundation

D) Ecosystem of commercial service providers

E) Opportunity for users to get things done

More about sustainable open source communities:

OSS Watch (UK), Building Communitieshttp://oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/buildingcommunities

http://oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/buildingcommunities


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


Source code statistics

Source: OpenHub comparison https://www.openhub.net/p/compare?project_0=LibreOffice&project_1=Apache+OpenOffice

https://www.openhub.net/p/compare?project_0=LibreOffice&project_1=Apache+OpenOffice



A) Good governance


C) Non-for-profit foundation




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 2013 „Linux Kernel Development – How Fast It is Going, Who is Doing It, What They are Doing, and Who is Sponsoring It“ http://www.linuxfoundation.org/publications/linux-foundation/who-writes-linux-2013

Companies contributing to the kernel from 2012-03-18 till 2013-06-30:

http://www.linuxfoundation.org/publications/linux-foundation/who-writes-linux-2013


Linux kernel facts

Source: Linux Foundation 2013 „Linux Kernel Development – How Fast It is Going, Who is Doing It, What They are Doing, and Who is Sponsoring It“ http://www.linuxfoundation.org/publications/linux-foundation/who-writes-linux-2013

● 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 nearly 10'000 individual developers from over 1000 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-2013


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


C) Nonprofit foundation




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 2013: 1.6 billion $ → 53% of expensesResearch and development FY 2013: 0.8 billion $ → 27% of expenses

Source: ADOBE SYSTEMS INC. FY2013 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 2013: 10.8 billion $ → 71% of expensesResearch and development FY 2013: 4.5 billion $ → 29% of expenses

Source: APPLE INC. Form 10-K for FY13 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. 2013 10-K, http://www.microsoft.com/investor/AnnualReports/default.aspx

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



A) Good governance






Business models with open source

1. 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.

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

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

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

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

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

7. Custom development - Customers pay for the software to be customized to meet their specific requirements.

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

Source: Question 16 from the 2014 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.ch (and .de/.at/.fr/.com/.org)

● Relational database of– open source products (projects)– open source service providers– open source client examples

● Statistics (2013-11-04 / 2014-10-01)– Number of products: 282 / 386– Number of service providers: 149 / 292– Number of client examples: 126 / 291

● 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.ch/


Private-collective model of innovation

● Private investment model

– Return on investment through intellectual property rights

● Collective innovation model

– Public funding for public good production

– Solving free riding problem with taxes

● Private-collective model of innovation

– Coined 2003 by Eric von Hippel and Georg von Krogh

– Private innovations as public goods (knowledge revealing)

– Example: production of open source software by firms

Source: von Hippel, E. and von Krogh, G. (2003) ‘Open source software and the ‘private-collective’ innovation model: issues for organization science’, Organization Science, Vol. 14, No. 2, pp.209–223.



A) Good governance






Opportunity for users to get things done

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

IdeologyAltruism

KinshipFun

Reputation

ReciprocityLearning

Own-useCareer

Pay

Intrinsic motivation

Extrinsic motivation


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



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



Source: Who Paid What in ILIAS 4.5http://www.ilias.de/docu/goto.php?target=wiki_1357_Who_Paid_What_in_ILIAS_4.5

http://www.ilias.de/docu/goto.php?target=wiki_1357_Who_Paid_What_in_ILIAS_4.5


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


Initiating organizations in 2011

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

Community organizations● Association Swiss Open Systems User Group /ch/open● Association Freies Office Deutschland e.V.

(former association OpenOffice.org Deutschland e.V.)● Open Source Business Alliance OSBA


Challenges

● Huge knowledge gap: terminology, standard specification, structures and processes within public administrations etc.

● Different perspectives: input oriented (=developers)vs. output oriented (=users)

● Different interests: perfect implementation (developers) vs. solving the problem (users)


Current OOXML improvements

Ernst & Young

SUSE

Lanedo

Funding 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

EUR 50kEUR 13k

EUR 13k

EUR 4k

EUR 8k

EUR 15k

EUR 14k

EUR 25k

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


Development results of first project

Source: http://www.osb-alliance.de/working-groups/projekte/ooxml-filter/projektergebnisse-ooxml-filter/

http://www.osb-alliance.de/working-groups/projekte/ooxml-filter/projektergebnisse-ooxml-filter/


Agenda







Conclusions and topics for discussion

My (no-brainer) advices:

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 Semantic MediaWiki will continue to fly for millions of years!

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

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