Open Source & Research

Panel SessionFuture Networks 6th FP7 Concertation Plenary Meeting.

19 October 2010

Introduction

• Why build on top of open source?– Is it

• To help researchers to share openly important technological advances & disseminate results of a project.

• A commercialisation avenue to exploit the project potential.

• A means to sell “know how” and “knowledge”.– Example commercial open source business models will

be presented during this session

Introduction

• Why build on top of open source?– Statement for future Standardisation

• A tool, a stepping stone in this process towards commercialisation

– Open source does NOT mean free.• Patents might still apply,• Even non-patented software can have a “Not for

commercial use” license.

Slide

Experience in 4WARD on legal aspects of Open Source

What’s the right way to achieve open source?– Licenses

• Problems with using different libraries and their licenses.• Lacking the knowledge of the licensed versions.

Copyright laws– OSS produced by students or contract researchers.– Have to consider difference from country to country on copyright laws

Discussions at the start of 4WARD– No GPL

There should be at least one person, if not a knowledge base to help researcher navigate this area– What issues in relation to the existing consortium agreement

Recommend– A project should have a dedicated chair on Open Source.

Observations Maintaining an Open Source project

• To build Critical mass– Metcalfe laws apply.

– Speed to market, especially if there is a new territory.

• Why would a company support resources for maintaining an open source project– A business model needs to be identified early in the process.

• Sourceforge– A graveyard for many a research project.

– To avoid, your project needs an evangelist, to build a developer and user community.

Beyond the lifetime of an FP7 project4WARD

NetInf– http://www.netinf.org/

OpenTinos– http://www.opentinos.org

Agenda

• Guest speakers:– Mr Richard Graham, Bird & Bird Law Firm

– Mr Roberto Galoppini (Commercial Open Source Software)

– Dr Marko Boger, CEO of Gentleware and Professor for Software Architecture at the University of Applied Science Constance (HTWG Konstanz)

– Mr Diogo Gomes, IT Aveiro

Miguel Ponce de Leon

Research Manager

TSSG, WIT

miguelpdl@tssg.org

+353 51 302952 (w)

www.tssg.org/people/miguelpdl

twitter: miguelpdl