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 Stürmer
Head of the Research Center
for Digital Sustainability
University of Bern
Institute of Information Systems
Engehaldenstrasse 8
CH-3012 Bern
Switzerland
Office phone: +41 31 631 38 09
Swiss mobile: +41 76 368 81 65
Oman mobile: +968 9669 3607
matthias.stuermer@iwi.unibe.ch
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
Ecological
Sustainability

Ecological
Sustainability
Social
Sustainability

Ecological
Sustainability
Social
Sustainability
Economic
Sustainability

Ecological
Sustainability
Social
Sustainability
Economic
Sustainability
Digital
Sustainability

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.

Classification of goods
Rivalry
Access
Source: N. Gregory Mankiw, Principles of Economics, Dryden 1998.

Rivalry
non-rivalrousrivalrous
excludable
non-excludable
Access

Private Good Club Good
Common
Resources
Public Good
Rivalry
excludable
non-excludable
Access

Private Good Club Good
Common
Resources
Public Good
Rivalry
excludable
non-excludable
Access
e.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

Why not 'informational sustainability'?
Source: IDC's Digital Universe Study, sponsored by EMC, December 2012
http://www.emc.com/collateral/analyst-reports/idc-the-digital-universe-in-2020.pdf
Today's information is digital:

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

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

Images on the Golden Record
Source: 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

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 Firefox
UNIX command: apt-cache dotty firefox | dot -Tps > dependencygraph_firefox.ps

Elements of a
sustainable 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 the
Eclipse Foundation
Release of source
code 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

Elements of a
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

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

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 the
largest 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

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
Ideology
Altruism
Kinship
Fun
Reputation
Reciprocity
Learning
Own-use
Career
Pay
Intrinsic motivation
Extrinsic motivation

Elements of a
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 expenses
Research 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

Marketing&Admin vs. R&D at Apple
Sales and administration FY 2014: 12.0 billion $ → 67% of expenses
Source: APPLE INC. Form 10-K for FY14 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

Marketing vs. R&D at Microsoft
Source: MICROSOFT CORP. 2014 10-K, 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
requirements
e.g. for office suite
or database
Today
Proprietary product
e.g. Microsoft Office or
Oracle database
10 years ago
Open source product
e.g. LibreOffice or
PostgreSQL
Source: Diagram from Clayton M. Christensen „The Innovator's Dilemma“ (1997) adapted to open source context

Elements of a
A) Good governance

Business models with open source
1. Custom development - Customers pay for the software to be
customized 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

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, weekly
newsletter etc. about open source software
French translation available since 2014,
English coming 2015

Elements of a
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?
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

Ideology
Altruism
Kinship
Fun
Reputation
Reciprocity
Learning
Own-use
Career
Extrinsic
motivation
Pay

A) Open source feature requests
e.g. on www.bountysource.com
Source: https://www.bountysource.com

B) Project-specific feature lists
e.g. ILIAS E-Learning System
Source: 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 among
professional users
Source: Website of OSB Alliance Working Group Office Interoperability
http://www.osb-alliance.de/en/working-groups/wg-office-interoperability/

Process of institutional crowd-funding
Phase 1: Initialization
a) Mobilize interest of institutional open source software users, find funding for specification
b) Create clear and common understanding of the issues, ask the experts
c) Result: aggregated requirements, clustered as Use Cases within a specification
Phase 3: Implementation
a) Define project management, sign contracts, start implementing
b) Do testing among open source software users, finalize development
c) Result: Publish new source code, pass it upstream to the open source project
Phase 2: Funding
a) Publish specification as Request for Proposal (RfP), invite comanies to offer
b) 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 by
Working Group Office Interoperability of
Open 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 50k
EUR 13k
EUR 13k
EUR 4k
EUR 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

Digital sustainability of open source communities

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