Mythrealities

Open source:myths and realities

Carlo DaffaraEuropean Working Group on Libre Software

Conecta Research

Internet of Services 2011 – FLOSS WG

Myth #1: open source is notwidely used.


How much Open Source is inside the average codebase?


● Black Duck analysis of large code projects (avg. 700MB of code): 22% is OSS, up to 80% of new development is avoided through OSS

● On average, 30% of implemented functionalities is based on reused OSS code (Sojer M., Henkel J. “Code reuse in Open Source Software Development”)

● “sampling continues to find that between 30% and 70% of code submitted is .. in the form of OSS components and commercial libraries” (Veracode, “State of Software Security Report volume 3”, 2011)


35% of code created in the last 5 years is Open Source


What value does OSS reuse brings in?(Abts, Boehm, Bailey Clark “Empirical observations on COTS software integration effort based on the initial COCOTS calibration database”)


Total OSS source adoption value: 41B€


Myth #2: open source is notas good as proprietary sw.


“Figures support the idea that FOSS solutions are more innovative than proprietary ones: indeed, in all the three dimensions, experts’ evaluations are higher for FOSS than for proprietary software. … FOSS software not only show different levels of innovativity, but, as far as, new to the world products are concerned, they are also shaped by different innovation processes: radical innovation in the FOSS vs. incremental innovation in proprietary field.” (Rossi, Lorenzi, “Innovativeness of Free/Open Source solutions”)


"The growing rate, or the number of functions added, was greater in the open source projects than in the closed source projects. This indicates that the OSS approach may be able to provide more features over time than by using the closed source approach. (Paulson, Succi, Eberlein “An Empirical Study of Open Source and Closed Source Software Products”)


(Mohagheghi, Conradi, Killi and Schwarz “An Empirical Study of Software Reuse vs. Defect-Density and Stability”)


"Findings indicate that community Open Source applications show a slower growth of maintenance effort over time.” (Capra, Francalanci, Merlo “The Economics of Community Open Source Software Projects: An Empirical Analysis of Maintenance Effort”)

“The fourth law of software evolution, implying constant incremental effort, might be violated (Koch “Evolution of Open Source Software Systems – A Large-Scale Investigation”)


Deshpande, Riehle “The Total Growth of Open Source”


Source: Dirk Riehle, “The open source big bang”


Myth #3: external contributions are negligible.


“While IBM initially contributed software that was valued at 40M$, external contributors to the project created software representing a value of roughly 1.7B$ over the examined period.” (Spaeth, Stuermer, von Krogh “Enabling knowledge creation through outsiders: towards a push model of open innovation”)


Myth #4: code is the only worthwile potential contribution.


“[non-code] outside contributions are signicant. Open Cascade estimates that they represent about 20 % of the value of the software. Matra Datavision had to inject approximately 2M€ per year to continue to develop its tools. In 2000, the company limited the costs to 1.2 million.” (Jullien, Clement-Fontaine, Dalle “New Economic Models, New Software Industry Economy”)


The economic value of Open Source Software

Myth #5: Open Source limits the exploitation possibilities.


“[..] the aim of free software is not to enable a healthy business on software but rather to make it even impossible to make any income on software as a commercial product.” (Thomas Lutz, Microsoft representative at Tunis WSIS)

“Do open source where there aren't commercial alternatives” (Tony Hey, MS VP Research, Microsoft at TransferSummit2011)


“Open-source software is deliberately developed outside of market mechanisms... the nonmarket coordination mechanism fails to contribute to the creation of value in development, as opposed to the commercial software market. [It] does not generate profit, income, jobs or taxes … In the end, the developed software cannot be used to generate profit.” (Kooths S., Lagenfurth M. “Open Source-Software: An Economic Assessment” University of Muenster, Muenster Institute for Computational Economics)


“[Open Source] ... suppresses quality competition between OS firms and restricts their output much as an agreement to suppress competition on quality would. .. We find that the first-best solution in our model is to tax OS firms and grant tax breaks to [proprietary sw] firms.” (Engelhardt, Maurer, 2010 Goldman School of Public Policy)


Total value of OSS reuse per year: 116B€


With proprietary software, 86% of SW spending goes outside of Europe-and reduces local company margins

Ecosystem Revenues compared with MS revenues by partner type

Microsoft

Product-Oriented

Partner (e.g.,ISV, IHV)

Services-Oriented

Partner (e.g.,SI, Hoster)

Value-Added Partner(e.g., VAR)

Logistics-OrientedPartner (e.g., LargeAccount Reseller)

Retail LogisticsPartner (e.g., LargeRetail Electronics

Store)

$1 $4.09 $2.44 $2.30 $2.70 $2.931 24% 40.9% 43.5% 37% 34%

Source: Partner Opportunity in the Microsoft Ecosystem, IDC 2011; analysis by Daffara


Revenue per employee rating(FLOSS firms vs. Industry average)Computer Equipment 182%Software consultancy and supply 427%Services (excl. software cons. and supply) 211%Manufacturing (excl. computer equip.) 136%Other 204%ALL: 221%Source: MERIT



OSS Vendor Business model Open Core

Vendor example Zimbra

Number of covered products single or few

Economic advantage for the vendor

Reduction of R&D, reduced maintenance costs, visibility, increased dissemination, external ecosystem of add-ons, self-segmentation of the market for the proprietary add-ons

Economic advantage for the adopter

The adopter may opt for the open source edition if it is deemed sufficient; for the proprietary part, reduction in cost may give better price/quality ratio

Potential disadvantages of the model

Difficult to estimate the right balance between open and closed parts, external groups may create substitutes for the proprietary parts

Sale condition Need for the proprietary additions or need of support

Freeriding protection license choice, segmentation on features

External ecosystem potentially large, depending on the balance open/proprietary

(more examples in the FP7 primer...)

Myth #6: I need to create my own license.



Rank License %1 GNU General Public License (GPL) 2.0 47.6%2 GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) 2.1 9.1%3 Artistic License (Perl) 9.1%4 BSD License 2.0 6.2%5 GNU General Public License (GPL) 3.0 6.2%6 MIT License 4.6%7 Apache License 2.0 4.3%8 Code Project Open 1.02 License 2.9%9 Microsoft Public License (Ms-PL) 1.7%10 Mozilla Public License (MPL) 1.1 1.2%11 Common Public License (CPL) 0.5%12 Eclipse Public License (EPL) 0.5%13 GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) 3.0 0.5%14 0.4%15 Academic Free License 0.4%16 Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL) 0.3%17 Open Software License (OSL) 0.3%18 Mozilla Public License (MPL) 1.0 0.3%19 PHP License Version 3.0 0.2%20 Ruby License 0.2%

zlib/libpng License

Myth #7: Open Source isa silver bullet.


Myth #8: It is easy to create a community.



From: “Sustainability of Free/Libre Open Source Projects: A Longitudinal Study”Journal of the Association for Information Systems November 2010

“The software developed in the project is released under the GPL license; however, in order to obtain the login and password necessary to access the forge site, the interested parties need to send a signed document that confirm that the software will be used for research purpose only, that any public criticism is explicitly forbidden, and that any use of the software itself as a basis of a published article need to be first agreed with the project coordinator.”


Thanks!

Carlo [email protected]

http://carlodaffara.conecta.it

mailto:[email protected]

Mythrealities

Technology

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