Lightning talk at FOSS4G 2016 - Open Source GIS Conference, Bonn (D) Mi. 24. August 2016. http://2016.foss4g.org/

1. Open Source Won.
So, Now What?
Stefan Keller,
Geometa Lab

2. Open Source won. So, now
what?
• by Klint Finley in WIRED 2016
• Every major piece of technology is
based on FOSS: web, phone,
television, car
• So, now what?
• That was already asked 2008! (see
later)

3. Klint Finley / WIRED con„t:
• But it‟s not that an enemy has been
vanquished or that proprietary
software is dead
• Esri, Oracle etc. are not likely to
radically change their business models
• Did you see someone declaring victory
or shouting loud on the streets?

4. Is FOSS an evolution
or a revolution?

5. Problems in crowdsourced
projects (1of2)
• Some are underfunded
• Some are controlled by single
company
– MySQL!
– OpenStreetMap SW ecosystem?
• Some rely on single persons
– are struggling with burnout
– others have trouble working their way into
the community

6. Community is everything!

7. Problems in crowdsourced
projects (2of2)
• „OpenStreetMap past(s),
OpenStreetMap future(s)“ by Alan
McConchie
• Scenarios:
1. Ghost Town
2. Garden
3. Borgesian „1:1 map“

8. Garden?
• Does not mean a project need be
egalitarian
• But a healthy „mix“ of Stachanows and
a „long tail“
• Inverse „80 / 20“ rule?

9. Where open source hasn't won
• By Mike Loukides, O‟Reilly 2016
• Open source in gaming (added by me)
• “Open user interfaces” (i.e. user
friendly / useful)
• Open data
• Open data models
• Open hardware
• Open science

10. Great, we won. So what did we
win?
• by Anthony Ha, wrapup of Open
Source Business Conference (OSBC)
2008
• Disappointed that FOSS isn‟t living up
to some pioneers‟ ambitious goals?
• Isn‟t that what happens in most
revolutions?
• FOSS and Open Data / OpenStreetMap
are maturing

11. There are exciting things to
come!
• … More mature FOSS projects
• … Better software, e.g. through
parallelization + distribution
• … And hopefully more open things 