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The Rise and Evolu0on of the Open Source So8ware Founda0on EOLA 2012 Stephen R. Walli October 2012

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The Thesis FOSS Founda9ons are essen9al to enabling the growth of FOSS Projects when companies want to par9cipate, contribute and adopt.

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Two Ra0os ~20 LoC/day 1 bug : 1000 LoC

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So8ware Economics We have shared soIware since we wrote it. Liberally-­‐licensed collabora9vely developed soIware is the best re-­‐use strategy. “Plagiarism” in soIware is good and indeed necessary.

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The Economics of Shared Development

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The Economics of Companies Collabora0ng

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Founda0ons as IP Management Machines • This is the history of the FSF, the ASF, the OSDL/Linux Founda9on, and the Eclipse Founda9on • Regardless of what each founda9on represents to its members and cons9tuencies, what they “do” is IP management.

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Henrik Ingo’s Observa0ons Henrik Ingo determined that the 9 largest most vibrant projects are governed independently by founda9ons (hWp://bit.ly/f3O34M) The tenth largest (is company supported) is an order of magnitude smaller

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Neutrality and Ownership “There appears to be a glass ceiling for single vendor projects prohibi9ng their growth from the Large category upwards. ” — Henrik Ingo

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What is a FOSS Founda0on? Founda9ons are non-­‐profits* that provide: Legal Structure Business Opera9ons Technical Services * But they are s9ll businesses

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Founda0ons * But they are s9ll businesses

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Corporate Projects

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Corporate Projects ????? ?????

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Why does it maKer? Neutrality encourages contribu9on Clean IP encourages adop9on Founda9ons act as community centre-­‐of-­‐gravity

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Neutrality Encourages Contribu0on (Inbound)

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Neutrality and Ownership • Successful Projects Grow and Evolve un9l … – Apache SoIware Founda9on – OSDL/Linux Founda9on – Eclipse Founda9on

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Clean IP Encourages Adop0on (Outbound)

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Legal Structures are Important • License (inbound/outbound) • Assignments and Contribu9on Licenses • Provenance tracking • Liability and risk management • CommiWer indemnifica9on

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Founda0on as Community Centre-­‐of-­‐Gravity

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Crea0ng Strong Communi0es • Support an Architecture of Par9cipa9on • Make it easy to join the conversa9on • Support and grow commiWers • Support lines of communica9ons • Provide technical services + infrastructure (forges, code signing, etc.)

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Conclusions While liberally licensed shared collabora9ve soIware development may represent the best soIware re-­‐use strategy invented, FOSS Founda9ons are essen9al to the par9cipa9on of companies that can grow and sustain FOSS projects and their communi9esn long term

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Ques0ons? Stephen R. Walli Technical Director, Outercurve Founda9on hWp://www.outercurve.org swalli@outercurve.org hWp://stephesblog.blogs.com (Once More unto the Breach) hWp://www.networkworld.com/community/walli @stephenrwalli