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Author(s)	Date	Title	Type	Compressed Abstract	Affiliation
Jason V. Morgan	2009-02	Safe harbors and F/OSS community interests: a new approach to United States patent reform advocacy	Paper	Software patents have been a concern in the Free/Open Source Software (F/OSS) community for many years. Some F/OSS supporters have been very vocal in their opposition to software patents, yet software patents have a solid foothold in United States patent law. Patent law continues to evolve, but F/OSS interests are not being addressed directly. The focus of some F/OSS advocates on the abolition of software patents has been to extreme a position to move United States policymakers to act. Thus, F/OSS interests are only advanced to the extent that they coincide with the interests of the broader software industry. This is problematic; F/OSS interests do not strictly coincide with the interests of the broader software industry. F/OSS advocates can create a new balance of power by focusing on F/OSS community interests rather than holding out for an end to software patents. Focusing on the interests opens up potential, modest patent reforms. One set of modest reforms are safe habor protections, laws establishing rules that, if followed, exempt parties from key legal consequences. Introducing a series of safe harbors to allow F/OSS contributors to act without fear of taking on unmanageable patent infringement risks could be as effective as eliminating software patents when it comes to protecting F/OSS community interests. With policymakers struggling to adapt the patent system to the competing needs of the pharmaceutical and software industries, F/OSS advocates could obtain safe habors as concessions from policymakers seeking support for other patent reforms. Acting quickly to secure safe harbor protections could neutralize the most significant threats that the patent system could pose for F/OSS.	None
Jan Eilhard and Yann Ménière	2009-02	A Look Inside the Forge: Developer Productivity and Spillovers in Open Source Projects	Paper	This paper presents an empirical study on the production of open source software, based on a panel of 10,553 projects registered on SourceForge over a period of 28 months (February 2005 until May 2007). We use a flexible Translog specification to estimate a production function relating the number of program updates with the number of corporate and voluntary contributors, taking into account the spillovers flowing from other projects. We find that corporate developers are the more productive ones, but that associating them with other developers in a project entails inefficiencies. We also find evidence of non-decreasing returns to scale in open source projects, thus suggesting substantial efficiency gains of division of labor in large open source projects. Our empirical analysis finally highlights a substantial impact of spillovers on productivity. Spillovers mainly benefit mature projects. They especially flow between projects with the same topic and/or programming language, and have a stronger impact in projects involving corporate developers.	CERNA - Mines Paristech
Stefano De Paoli & Vincenzo D'Andrea	2008-04	HOW ARTIFACTS RULE WEB BASED COMMUNITIES: Practices of Free Software Development	Paper	This paper seeks to understand how complex tasks are accomplished by large web based communities. In order to do so we consider that technologies may embody organizational rules, hence becoming the core of coordination efforts in such communities. Our analysis is based on the concepts of translation and inscription taken from the Actor-Network Theory, while the data has been gathered using an ethnographic approach. We base our observation on the case of a Geographic Information Systems (GIS): the Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (also known as GRASS) is a system developed by a small group of developers but sustained by very large users' base, located all around the world. In particular we focus on small explanatory examples of everyday development activities of the GRASS community in relation to the internationalization process. We focus on artifacts, such as the Concurrent Versioning System and the GRASS source code, that greatly affect the everyday activities of the community. The main result of our research is the illustration that complex tasks are accomplished by large web based communities thanks to many small contributions which are shaped and organized by the rules embodied in artifacts. This is the pre-print version of the paper: De Paoli S. and D'Andrea V. (2008), How artefacts rule web based communities: practices of Free Software Development, in Int. J. Web Based Communities, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp.199–219. which is posted here thanks to the permission of the publisher.	National University of Ireland Maynooth
rahul kala	2008-12	The Open and Closed Styles of Talent Acquisition and Management: Which takes an edge where	Paper	The phenomenal success of Free/Open Source Software during the recent years has led researchers in all related fields to re-think and re-evaluate the studies and concepts, especially those which the open source violates. Talent management and talent acquisition is no exception to this. The sudden rise in open source projects and their success is a cause of motivation for all of us to evaluate their philosophy and implement the same. Proper talent management and acquisition of talent can play a key role in strengthening the industry. Traditional closed management with their classic way of functioning may still look at the open source model as a big mystery. Open source has violated many of the theories of Software Engineering like limited team size, decentralized project management, etc. The concepts of self-motivated individuals, adaptive division of labor, informal or indirect leadership, etc. are the contributions of the open source to the world. In this paper we discuss these concepts and state their differences with the way of working of closed talent management. Even though open source has various benefits in working, but requirement of a good coordination process, redundancy of development, versioning problems, etc. pose a limitation. We present an analogy of the talent management in the two concepts with that of the natural ecosystem. Talent in open source works in a manner similar to the ant colonies. Here the process is more community oriented and there is no single dictator power. The proprietary, on the other hand, works on talent as the lions ruling the den. There is a hierarchy and that needs to be respected. Only the leader has the right to make final decision, and that is binding. We also take a look into the present conditions of meltdown and show how the open source way is better suited for this scenario. Even though the present firms may be seeing a setback at this time of recession, the impact on firms with an open source way of working is much lighter or none at all. We also discuss the interactions between the two styles of talent management and present a model that can be adopted by the proprietary companies to benefit from open model. Our arguments of the paper not only deal with software, but also on content that comes under the domain of Creative Commons. We have taken the examples of Wikipedia, Sourceforge.net, Linux etc. for the various issues we discuss.	SF-FOSS, IIITM Gwalior, http://sf-foss.iiitm.ac.in
Larcik-ol	2015	Good site	Doctoral Thesis	c w welch asquity darlene dances monologue international same day service courier virginia waynesville recreation center	Unknown
L Dahlander and M Magnusson	2008-12	How Do Firms Make Use of Open Source Communities?	Abstract	Relying on four in-depth case studies of firms involved with open source software, we investigate how firms make use of open source communities, and how that use is associated with their business models. Three themes - accessing, aligning and assimilating - are inductively developed for how the firms relate to the external knowledge created in the communities. For each theme, we make an argument about the tactics associated with each theme and their positive and negative consequences. The findings are related to the literature on the open and distributed nature of innovation, and various theoretical and managerial implications are discussed. (PUBLISHED IN LONG RANGE PLANNING - PLEASE EMAIL FOR FULL COPY)	Stanford University and Imperial College London
JAMIL ALKHATIB, MOHAB ANIS, HAMID NOORI	2008-03	OPEN SOURCE: THE NEXT BIG THING IN TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER TO DEVELOPING NATIONS	Paper	Free Open Source (FOS) should be one of the least expensive and most effective solutions for technology and knowledge transfer to developing nations. This concept has diffused to several fields such as software, hardware, and content. FOS offers not only a low cost alternative for technology acquisition, but also for networking based on cooperation. In addition, the transaction costs of communication, licensing and negotiations are minimized, freeing up funds for real development. In this paper, FOS incentives, indicators, and measures are explained and the advantages of FOS as a viable technology and knowledge transfer tool for developing countries are highlighted.	Handasa Arabia
Nicolas Jullien	2008-11	Developing 'FLOSS' - A Market Driven Investment: First Evidence from a Francophone Companies Survey	Paper	Over the last few years, FLOSS ("Free Libre Open Source Software") has become a commercially viable reality of the first order. It is viewed as an extrem case of open innovation (Chesbrough, 2003), and thus of a laboratory for analysing innovation production in Internet based/knowledge based industries. It the FLOSS field an increasing number of companies are getting involved in the communities of development (Lakhani & Wolf 2005). Scholars (see, for instance Dahlander & Wallin 2006) has analysed this as a way to control a complementary asset, without owning it (as defined by Teece 1986, Teece & al. 1997). In this article, we defend the idea that involvement can be of different intensity, from complementary to specific asset, and that this intensity depends of the market of the firm. To do so, we surveyed francophone companies (France, Belgium, Switzerland) affirming a utilization of FLOSS in their commercial activity. Based on roughly 500 companies concerned, we obtained 141 usable responses and, via an ascendant hierarchical clustering (AHC) we statistically verified a link between FLOSS commercial strategies and degree of involvement into communities. We propose a typology of commercial strategies explaining this differences in involvement.	LUSSI, Telecom Bretagne, M@rsouin
Andreas Meiszner et al.	2008-09	FLOSS-like education transfer report	Paper	Preposition Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) communities are not only an exemplar for successful software development, but also for well working learning environments. Yet little is known about how learning occurs in the FLOSS communities and what the underlying success factors are. FLOSS communities might be seen as an example of ‘Best Practice’ in how ICT can help to improve education in terms of learning processes, up to date content and open inclusive education where no learner is excluded from participation. The FLOSSCOM project was undertaken in order to evaluate how learning in FLOSS is organised and if, to which degree, and how FLOSS learning principles can be transferred to and used for the improvement of ICT supported formal education. Precisely, the FLOSSPOLS project intended to o identify the factors that contribute to successful knowledge construction in informal learning communities, such as the FLOSS communities o analyze the effectiveness of a FLOSS-like learning community in a formal educational setting o provide case studies, scenarios and guidelines for teachers and decision-makers on how to successfully embed such learning communities within formal educational environments to enhance student progression, retention and achievement o evaluate the project and disseminate the results to the wider community. This report is the third and final report of the FLOSSCOM project. It aims to provide scenarios and guidelines for teachers and decision-makers as practical documentation on how principles of FLOSS-like informal learning communities might be transferred to formal educational environments.	http://www.flosscom.net
Mahmoud Refaat Nasr	2007-09	Open Source Software: The use of open source	Masters Thesis	This thesis explores the reasons behind the poor level of adoption of open source web GIS software, and whether it is due to poor awareness about open source concepts or due to technical deficiencies in the open source tools. The research was done in 2 major phases; the first phase involved conducting surveys to measure the awareness and attitudes towards open source. The surveys examined three categories of people involved in the IT industry, namely: decision makers, software developers, and end users. The measurement of awareness was done by developing an Awareness Indicator and a Sentiment Indicator for each category. These indicators were developed by the author during the course of the study in order to provide a measurable and descriptive indication of the results. The second phase involved performing a comparative analysis between MapServer a leading open source web GIS tool, and three of the leading proprietary web GIS software, namely: ESRI’s ArcIMS, Intergraph’s GeoMedia WebMap, and MapInfo’s MapXtreme. The results of the research provide an insight on how different categories of people view open source, and demonstrate that lack of awareness about open source concepts and its competencies may be a major reason behind the poor adoption of open source solutions. The results of the comparative analysis also demonstrate that MapServer is technically equivalent to its commercial counter parts.	Middlesex university
Andreas Meiszner, Rüdiger Glott and Sulayaman K. Sowe	2008-09	Preparing the Ne(x)t Generation: Lessons learnt from Free/Libre Open Source Software and their Communities	Paper	In this article, the authors Andreas Meiszner, Rüdiger Glott and Sulayaman K. Sowe, examine the lessons that can be learnt from the Free / Libre Open and Source Software (FLOSS) communities. FLOSS communities, as good practice examples of Open Participatory Learning Ecosystems, illustrate possible pathways for higher education to go beyond the limits of the current Open Educational Resource move.	FLOSSCom project / The Open University, UK
Mike Chege	2008-09	Ubuntuism, Commodification, and the Software Dialectic.	Paper	“Free as in speech, but not free as in beer,” is the refrain made famous by Richard Stallman, the standard-bearer of the free software movement. However, many free software advocates seem to be of the opinion that the purity of free software is somehow tainted by any preoccupation with money or profit. Inevitably, this has implications for the economic sustainability of free software, for without a source of income, how can free software hope to survive? The challenge of finding a way to ensure economic sustainability without sacrificing the ideals of free software is what we have termed the “software dialectic.” While the literature on the economics of free software is already quite substantial, in this essay we approach the subject by considering first principles, such as the difference between wealth and money, how the market chooses what to produce, and what the laws of thermodynamics have to do with economics. Finally, even though the ideas expressed in this essay apply to free software in general, here we shall be focusing on that particular incarnation of free software known as the GNU/Linux system.
Greg R. Vetter	2008-12	Slouching toward Open Innovation: Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) for Electronic Health Information	Paper	The potential for Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) to enable open innovation in a particular software market depends on the characteristics of that market. From this premise, using a case study approach, this Article argues that some software markets have characteristics that inherently disfavor initiating or expanding the use of FOSS and its unique mode of licensing the intellectual property that underlies software. The case study involves software to manage health information for hospitals or physician groups in the form of the electronic medical record, or EMR. Proprietary software venders supply most of the products for this software market. Recently, the U.S. government undertook experimental steps to promote a FOSS package for EMR, raising the question as to whether the EMR software market is amenable to FOSS. This Article describes various factors that might signal a FOSS disfavoring market, including low technical aptitude among users, differences among users in their work flow and software interface needs, users with dispassionate computing agendas, and entrenched proprietary competitors in an area supporting minimal complementary goods or services. FOSS, however, might be able to overcome these impedances in a particular software market if its unique motivational mix is strong enough. This Article describes potential facilitators to support this possibility. One such facilitator, specifically for the EMR market, but perhaps generally for other markets, may be safe harbors for FOSS development within any relevant anti-collaboration and anti-tinkering laws. Licensing facilitators include emphasizing approaches such as dual licensing or promoting FOSS contributions by contractors engaged by users. This Article concludes by mentioning potential non-licensing facilitators to augment the FOSS motivational mix for markets that might disfavor it.	University of Houston Law Center
Greg R. Vetter	2008-01	Claiming Copyleft in Open Source Software: What if the Free Software Foundation’s General Public License (GPL) had been Patented?	Paper	Patent law, by necessity, needs some way to evaluate inventiveness. Otherwise, it will grant rights to advances not worth "the embarrassment of an exclusive patent." The innovations of version two of the Free Software Foundation's (FSF) GNU General Public License (GPLv2), arriving in 1991, could not, under U.S. patent law at that time, have been meaningfully measured against patent law's criteria, often referred to as the five elements of patentability. The first element of patentability, statutory subject matter, would have excluded the GPLv2's copyright-based licensing technique as a "business method." A variety of industry developments in the decades following GPLv2's arrival, combined with the license's potent ideological force and clever use of copyright law, propelled FOSS licensing into a prominent and path-breaking place within information technology worldwide. Its force and presence, and lightning-rod character, have grown over time, with GPLv2 remaining the dominant license in mind-share, if not code-share. In addition, all of this occurred without patent protection for GPLv2's unique licensing technique. This then raises the counter-factual inquiry for this symposium article: what might have occurred differently if GPLv2's licensing method had been patentable? In other words, if the U.S. patent law of statutory subject matter in 1991 was sufficiently permissive, and if the FSF and Richard Stallman successfully patented the novel licensing approaches of GPLv2, would patent protection have altered the FOSS movement's two-decade trajectory through information technology and the Internet? If so, can we estimate in what ways? The Article's assessment is that GPLv2 could readily meet the other four elements of patentability (with non-obviousness being the closest call compared to prior sublicensing schemes), and that the FOSS trajectory would change minimally, due to a variety of factors, including practical constraints on the enforcement potency of patent claims to GPLv2, competition from other types of FOSS licensing, and strategic considerations for a variety of players and camps within the FOSS movement. However, in the counterfactual, license proliferation diminishes, and dual licensing may be foreclosed.	University of Houston Law Center
Greg R. Vetter	2007-01	Open Source Licensing & Scattering Opportunism in Software Standards	Paper	Despite their beneficial influence on interoperability and markets, problems of detrimental opportunism occur with technology standards, including standards implemented in software, which this Article calls “Software Standards.” Inspired by new perspectives on the study of semicommons in the history of real property, this Article contemplates the substitutability of free and open source software (“FOSS”) for traditional standard-setting approaches. Standards are analogous to semicommons, where public and private use interact, raising the possibility of opportunistic influence on the Software Standard to increase private gain at the expense of the public benefit in a more uniform standard. With its source code disclosure requirement, FOSS shifts and dampens this opportunism, although various limits influence the reach of its effect. The political economy around a standard will express itself differently under a FOSS implementation, and clearing intellectual property rights in the standard is no more certain than under the traditional standard-setting approach.	University of Houston Law Center

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