Open Source Initiatives for learning resources

1
Open Source Initiatives for learning resources

• Paul Lefrere (p.lefrere_at_open.ac.uk)
• 29 January 2003, Luxembourg
• Concertation meeting session on Exploitation
  business plan, IPR, open source

2
Knowledge life cycle (after AKT)

• Acquire knowledge
• Model (learners, subject)
• Transform knowledge into learning resources or
  re-usable knowledge
• Retrieve and re-use
• Publish / share some / all of the knowledge, to
  an eager audience
• Maintain the knowledge that underpins the
  learning resources

3
Some challenges

• Cost of capturing knowledge diversity of
  sources, distributed nature of sources, scale of
  content
• Publication issues ownership (what changes are
  allowed? moral rights, IPR)
• Maintain Knowledge who does it and how?
• What can be shared safely?
• Finding non-proprietary IT systems that can be
  used for sharing assets in education
• Finding a business model that works

4
Possible license choices

• no license at all (i.e., releasing software into
  the public domain)
• licenses like the BSD License that place
  relatively few constraints on what a developer
  may do (including creating proprietary versions
  of open source products)
• the GNU General Public License (GPL) and variants
  which attempt to constrain developers from making
  changes to open-source products and then
  attempting to keep them proprietary for
  commercial purposes or other reasons
• the Artistic License, which modifies various of
  the more controversial aspects of the GPL
• the Mozilla Public License (MozPL) and variants
  (including the Netscape Public License or NPL)
  which allow developers to create proprietary
  add-ons if they wish
• (from setting-up-shop.html)

5
Business Models (1 of 3)

• "Support Sellers," (revenue from media
  distribution, branding, training, consulting,
  custom development, and post-sales support
  instead of licensing fees)
• "Loss Leader," where a no-charge open-source
  product is used as a loss leader for traditional
  commercial software
• "Widget Frosting," for companies that are in
  business primarily to sell hardware but use the
  open-source model to enable software such as
  driver and interface code

6
Business Models (2 of 3)

• "Accessorizing," for companies which distribute
  books, computer hardware and other physical items
  associated with and supportive of open-source
  software
• "Service Enabler," where open-source software is
  created and distributed primarily to support
  access to revenue-generating on-line services
• "Brand Licensing," in which companies are charged
  for the right to use a brand name and trademarks
  in creating derivative products

7
Business Models (3 of 3)

• "Sell It, Free It," where traditional commercial
  products are converted to open-source products
  when appropriate
• "Software Franchising," in which a company
  authorizes others to use its brand names and
  trademarks in creating associated organizations
  doing custom software development, and supplies
  franchises with training and related services in
  exchange for franchise fees

8
Open Source OKI

• Discussion of the OKI approach
• An example of an OKI presentation (Vijay Kumar)