The Legends of Open Source

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The Legends of Open Source

• Jonathan E. Cook
• New Mexico State University

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The people were oppressed by the prices of
commercial softwarethey longed for someone to
come and pull the sword from the stone...
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Arthur proved to be the one who could save the
people and free them by offering them security in
free software.
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He faithfully carried out his destiny.
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But it was not always easythe sellers of
software fought back
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Eventually, the people lived happily ever after,
living in the Camelot of free and open software.
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The Benevolent Dictatorship

• Product is free, but process is authoritarian
• The authority is perceived to be benevolent
• Often a core team (the round table) has the
  authority
• Technical decisions rule
• But in CSSD (closed source s/w development)
• lack of benevolence
• management/marketing decisions

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The Pool of Resources

• OSSD is not concerned with resource usage
• Is OSSD as effective as we perceive it?
• not just quality, but cost measurement
• not just accepted code, but rejected and even
  abandoned
• costs may be much higher than we expect
• CSSD
• must be concerned with resource usage
• must spend effort in tracking resources

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The Level of Talent

• Who are the heros of OSSD?
• How many are there? (few)
• Could the average paid developer be an OSS hero?
  (no, or perhaps rarely)
• OSSD can ignore lesser talents
• but may get a few good submissions from them
• CSSD
• must reflect the distribution of talent
• must attempt to obtain results from everyone

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Motivating the Contributors

• OSSD motivates through a unique combination of
  philanthropy and self-interest
• two of the strongest motivators around!
• desire for education also plays a role
• recognition (fame) may be a reward or a motivator
• and most projects are fairly exciting
• CSSD
• pays workers to produce boring software!
• but there have been cases of higher motivation

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Not Redesigning the Wheel

• The hardest part of S/W development is the
  requirements and the design
• OSSD (mostly) gets to skip these steps
• well known application domains with fixed
  fundamental requirements and few high-level
  design choices
• at least in many of the big success stories of
  OSS
• CSSD
• must pay for these hard steps

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Is it all that bleak?

• Hopefully not.

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Domains w/ technical users

• S/W components or frameworks used by systems
  integrators and other technical users
• user base is composed of software developers
• these users can be contributors to a product
• Satisfies the self-interest motivator of OSS
• Can provide recognition and monetary rewards to
  encourage other motivators

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Rewarding talent

• OSS rewards talent through recognition of a
  contribution and eventual knighthood
• the meritocracy idea
• In CSSD, must balance recognition with
  maintenance of team cohesiveness
• Not really software engineering, but basic
  project management

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OSS-style outsourcing

• A controlled bazaar model of a virtual
  organization
• Registration of potential contributors
• Free submission of contributions
• Those that are accepted are recognized and
  purchased
• Rewards talent and implements the meritocracy
  idea
• Allows self-defined employment