Most open source frameworks and libraries that are being used in research studies have little original documentation associated with them. However, I as well as others have written up such documentation. Here are those frameworks that I see increasingly being used in scientific studies, as well as any design documentation documentation that I may have provided.

• JUnit, JUnit 3.8 Design Documentation
• JHotDraw, JHotDraw 5.1 Design Documentation
• JEdit, …

I would also like to offer up JValue, a self-contained framework for value objects in Java that has been in productive use at one of my former employers and that I put out as open source. It is very cleanly implemented and has a great design pattern story associated with it, see its documentation.

• JValue, JValue Design Documentation

I don’t have the complete revision history of JValue available on the net right now but I can provide it upon request (or will do so anyway as soon as I find the time).

There are many more such frameworks, so please let me know if you’ve seen some that both have been used more than once in scientific case studies or validations and for which you know good design documentation. Thanks!

Read more on SAP’s SDN…

Archived copy of article.

Title: Open Source Business Models

Interviewer: Markus Völter

Abstract: In this episode we’re talking to Dirk Riehle about open source business models. We started looking at the way OS projects work and defined different kinds of open source projects. In the main part of the discussion we looked at various ways of how to make money with open source: consulting, support contracts, commercial variant of an open source project, etc. We then looked at the chances and risks of each of these approaches. The next part focused on different open source licenses and how they are suitable for open source business. We concluded the episode by discussing a couple of specific questions and loose ends.

Reference: “Episode 94: Open Source Business Models with Dirk Riehle.” Software Engineering Radio, April 23, 2008.

Link: SE Radio Podcast on Open Source Business Models

First my proposal, then some litmus tests, followed by a bit of history.

• Commercial open source is software provided as open source where a single legal entity owns the rights to the software (SugarCRM, Alfresco, etc.)
• Professional open source is software provided as open source where a dominant firm provides services around the software without actually owning it (JBoss, Spring, etc.)
• Community open source is software provided as open source where multiple stakeholders hold the rights and no player dominates the software (Linux, Apache, etc.)

So here are some litmus tests:

• It is commercial open source (and not professional open source), if the open source firm can sell you usage rights to the software under a proprietary license.
• It is community open source (and not professional open source), if the services market is fluid and not dominated by one company.
• It is professional open source, if a single firm dominates the software but where other firms can compete (mostly) fairly on services. Typically this means that the copyright is spread among multiple parties, but the professional open source firm may hold some rights like trademarks that give some some additional leverage.

Historically, as far as I know, commercial open source was first practiced by MySQL, even though the term was only invented later by SugarCRM. A core go-to-market approach is the dual-license strategy. Only commercial open source firms can apply this strategy. The term professional open source was invented by Marc Fleury of JBoss to give open source a better reputation; mostly it refers to the provision of (professional) services around some particular open source software.

Both commercial and professional open source are go-to-market approaches and core strategies of a firm’s business model. Community open source is not a business model. If employed strategically, all it does is to curtail the revenue gathered from a particular market (like operating systems). It is used to shift revenues from the curtailed market into ancillary markets; basically a share of customer’s wallet ploy for the companies dominating one or more of the ancillary markets.

Appendix

This appendix was written one day after the original post. My original post had been triggered by a rather confused academic article in a high-profile journal. So I figured I should do the leg work and review how other folks have defined these terms.

• Giampaolo Garzarelli and Roberto Galoppini distinguish corporate, voluntary, and hybrid open source project models. Corporate open source is the same as commercial open source. In my understanding, voluntary and hybrid equal first and second generation community open source. First-gen community open source was completely driven by volunteers, second-gen community open source is being driven by volunteers and firms alike. There is no notion of professional open source, though the services business model probably always figures in.
• Michael Nolan argues that commercial and community open source exist and need to be distinguished. He compares Open Solaris with Eclipse and views the former as a commercial and the latter as a community project. I concur with his point about Eclipse not directly making IBM money but shifting the revenues to ancillary products, as stated above and argued elsewhere in more detail. I disagree, however, that only community open source is viable in the long-run and that it cannot serve commercial purposes.
• Matt Asay also agrees that commercial and community open source are different from each other. He argues that commercial open source has a firm at its center which gives a project focus and momentum, something that may be lacking from community open source. I used to agree with this distinction, but I think the second generation community open source demonstrated by the Apache Software Foundation and the Eclipse Foundation shows that community open source can have focus and momentum right from the start.

I want to emphasize that I’m talking about using open source as a go-to-market strategy. From this perspective, ownership rights become the core distinguishing factor. As far as I can tell, commercial and community open source are becoming the accepted terms. Professional open source as a term (not a practice) may loose traction, as people simply talk about open source services firms.

CALL FOR PAPERS

International Journal of Open Source Software & Processes (IJOSSP)
An Official Publication of the Information Resources Management Association - New in 2009
www.igi-global.com/ijossp

Editor-in-Chief: Stefan Koch, Vienna University of Economics and BA, Austria
Published: Quarterly (both in Print and Electronic form)

MISSION OF IJOSSP

The International Journal of Open Source Software and Processes (IJOSSP) aims to publish high-quality original research articles on the large field of open source software and processes. The primary mission is to enhance our understanding of this field and neighbouring areas by providing a focused outlet for rigorous research employing a multitude of approaches.

COVERAGE OF IJOSSP

IJOSSP adopts an inclusive approach in its coverage. Therefore papers from software engineering, management, sociology and other areas, as well as different research approaches are welcome. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• Characteristics of open source software projects, products and processes
• Case studies of open source projects, their participants and/or their development process
• Communication and coordination in open source projects
• Open source adoption and quality
• Open source software development processes
• User-centered innovation processes
• Economics of a distributed innovation process
• Motivation of participants in open source projects and other distributed development efforts
• Business models for open source and other community-created artifacts
• Evolution of both open source software artefacts and open source communities
• Legal issues of open source software
• Implications of open source software for functional areas like public administration or teaching
• Usage and adoption of open source software in different application areas and/or countries
• Economic analyses of open source
• Open science and open knowledge
• Customer co-creation and user participation in (software) design
• Open source software and processes research methods, tools, and data repositories

Please note that despite the title, IJOSSP acknowledges, embraces and covers other respective forms and definitions of similar nature, like free software or libre software. Therefore, each occurrence of open source should be read as free/libre/open source.

SUBMITTING TO IJOSSP

Prospective authors should note that only original and previously unpublished manuscripts will be considered. INTERESTED AUTHORS SHOULD CONSULT THE JOURNAL’S GUIDELINES FOR MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSIONS at http://www.igi-global.com/ijossp. To ensure the high quality of published material, IJOSSP utilizes a double-blind peer review process. Upon receipt of the manuscript, an associate editor and two reviewers are selected from the Editorial Review Board of the Journal. Final decision regarding acceptance/revision/rejection will be based on the reviews received from the reviewers.

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

• Paul David, Stanford University, USA & The University of Oxford, UK
• Brian Fitzgerald, University of Limerick, Ireland
• Joachim Henkel, Technische Universitaet Muenchen, Germany
• Eric von Hippel, MIT Sloan School of Management, USA
• Georg von Krogh, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
• Karim Lakhani, Harvard Business School, USA
• Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spain

ASSOCIATE EDITORS

• Jean-Michel Dalle, Universite Paris-Dauphine (Paris IX), France
• Ernesto Damiani, University of Milan, Italy
• Joe Feller, University College Cork, Ireland
• Scott Hissam, Carnegie Mellon, USA
• Greg Madey, University of Notre Dame, USA
• Dirk Riehle, SAP Labs LLC, USA
• Gregorio Robles, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spain
• Walt Scacchi, University of California - Irvine, USA
• Sebastian Spaeth, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
• Ioannis Stamelos, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

EDITORIAL REVIEW BOARD

• Ioannis Antoniadis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
• Evangelia Berdou, University of Sussex, UK
• Cornelia Boldyreff, University of Lincoln, UK
• Andrea Capiluppi, University of Lincoln, UK
• Carlo Daffara, Conecta Research, Italy
• Marina Fiedler, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Munich, Germany
• Daniel German, University of Victoria, Canada
• Stefan Haefliger, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
• Israel Herraiz, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spain
• Nicolas Jullien, TELECOM Bretagne, France
• Sandeep Krishnamurthy, University of Washington, USA
• George Kuk, Nottingham University Business School, UK
• Jan Ljungberg, Gothenburg University, Sweden
• Bjoern Lundell, University of Skoevde, Sweden
• Martin Michlmayr, Hewlett-Packard, Austria
• Sandro Morasca, Universita degli Studi dell’Insubria, Italy
• Gustaf Neumann, Vienna University of Economics and BA, Austria
• Bulent Ozel, Istanbul Bilgi University, Turkey
• Barbara Russo, Free University of Bolzano/Bozen, Italy
• Suleyman Sowe, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
• Megan Squire, Elon University, USA
• Brian Still, Texas Tech University, USA
• Stefan Strecker, University Duisburg-Essen, Germany
• Giancarlo Succi, Free University of Bolzano/Bozen, Italy
• Frank van der Linden, Philips Medical Systems, The Netherlands
• Andreas Wiebe, Vienna University of Economics and BA, Austria
• Donald Wynn Jr., University of Dayton, USA

PUBLISHER

The International Journal of Open Source Software & Processes is published by IGI Global, (formerly Idea Group Inc.) publisher of the “IGI Publishing,” “Information Science Publishing,” “IRM Press,” “CyberTech Publishing,” “Medical Information Science Reference” and “Information Science Reference” imprints. For additional information regarding the publisher, please visit www.igi-global.com.

All inquiries and submissions should be should be directed to the attention of:

Stefan Koch
Editor-in-Chief
International Journal of Open Source Software & Processes

E-mail: stefan.koch@wu-wien.ac.at

www.igi-global.com/ijossp

Authors: Dirk Riehle

Keywords: JUnit 3.8 Documentation

Abstract: This paper describes the design of the unit testing framework JUnit v3.8. The documentation technique employed is an enhanced version of collaboration-based design, also known as role modeling. In collaboration-based design, objects are viewed as playing multiple roles in different contexts, and different contexts are viewed as task specific collaborations. The documentation accounts for every method in the JUnit 3.8 framework by assigning it to a role. It thereby investigates whether roles and collaborations can serve as basic units of functionality provided by a design like a framework. Such a measure of functionality can serve multiple purposes, for example estimating implementation efforts or measuring complexity.

Reference: In Software Engineering Notes Volume 33, Issue 2 (March 2008), Article No 5. ACM Press, 2008.

Available as a PDF file.

Abstract: What If Bacteria Designed Computers? This talk explores Bynase, the biologically inspired protocol that Cybord computers use to signal values amongst themselves. The primary value of Bynase is that it drives system designers into novel tradeoffs with analogies in biological systems. A second value of Bynase is that it encourages casual small-scale hardware/software projects suitable for one-off art or educational projects.

PS: If you like biologically inspired approaches to software (systems building), please consider submitting a short paper to Onward! 2008 at OOPSLA, see Onward! 2008 Call for Papers.

Update

The talk took place and here is the DorkBotPDX 0×01 session summary.

Table 1: Doubling times for the growth curves

Figure 1: Semi-log scale graph of source lines of code added (Approach 1)

Figure 2: Semi-log scale graph of source lines of code added (Approach 2)

Figure 3: Semi-log scale graph of total source lines of code (both approaches)

Figure 4: Semi-log scale graph of number of open source projects added

Figure 5: Semi-log scale graph of total number of open source projects

Abstract: Web 2.0 features are now commonplace—blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, social bookmarking and the like are almost everywhere you look online. Now that these technologies are maturing, what are their common problems and challenges? How are these problems being solved? What similar challenges do Web 2.0 developers face, and how can they leverage the most common solutions? Here’s your chance to gather with other professionals facing the same issues and work together to identify solutions.

Read more…

Authors: Amit Deshpande, Dirk Riehle

Abstract: Software development is undergoing a major change away from a fully closed software process towards a process that incorporates open source software in products and services. Just how significant is that change? To answer this question we need to look at the overall growth of open source as well as its growth rate. In this paper, we quantitatively analyze the growth of more than 5000 active and popular open source software projects. We show that the total amount of source code as well as the total number of open source projects is growing at an exponential rate. Previous research showed linear and quadratic growth in lines of source code of individual open source projects. Our work shows that open source is expanding into new domains and applications at an exponential rate.

Reference: In Proceedings of the Fourth Conference on Open Source Systems (OSS 2008). Springer Verlag, 2008, to appear.

Available as a PDF file or in HTML, also see the Addendum.