The presentation supported the speech by Gabriele Ruffatti, Engineering Group's Architectures and Consulting Director, at the fifth edition of the Italian Conference on Free Software (Milan, Italy - 23rd - 24th June 2011).

1. Which relationship between enterprises
and the free software community?
Gabriele Ruffatti
Research & Innovation
Engineering Group
gabriele.ruffatti@eng.it
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2. Free software / Open Source
DISTRIBUTION
COMMUNITY
COMMERCIAL MODEL
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3. Industry-grade free software
… and its relationship with the COMMUNITY
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4. Different kinds of community
Simon Phipps, http://webmink.com/essays/community-types/
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5. Different kinds of community
conference
where open source meets academia
http://fossa2010.inrialpes.fr
end-users, adopters, committers
a varied community is a healthy community
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6. Different kinds of community
open source communities evolution over time
Communities, Consortia,
Actors Individuals Community Competence Centers
Networks
Management Hacker ethics Governance Ecosystems
Goals Technology Technology
Technology
Business
source: Cedric Thomas, OW2 Consortium, 2008
A collective business model: collaboration to increase the value of the organization as a whole
Co-opetition relations: availability of technology and of a business platform
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7. What is the community
Safe place for personal achievement (love/gift)
Restrictions: reception and exclusion
Personal and collective identity
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8. What is the network
Unsafe ever-evolving place (gain/loss)
Openness: connection and disconnection
Personal identity and collective marketing
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9. New commercial model: business ecosystem
Community Channel Network Ecosystem
Upstream flow of added value Value-added sharing
Vendor-buyer relationships Coopetition relationships
Quantitative rationale Qualitative and quantitative rationale
Efficiency – Differentiation – Customer relations Network externalities
from: Cedric Thomas, OW2 Consortium, 2008
from profit-based to value-based economic models
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10. From the ecosystem to the ecology of value
Enterprises
End users
Developers
Integrators
Service providers
Network aggregators
Community and Network coexistence
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11. Motivations and incentives
Motivations at the individual and organizational level
Need to recognize contributions and successes, to award incentives
Ego-altruism
learn and develop new skills
share knowledge and skills
participate in a new form of cooperation
Social
participate in the OS/FS scene
think that software should not be a proprietary good
Political
limit the power of large software companies
solve a problem that could not be solved by proprietary software
Product-related
get help in realizing a good idea for a software product
improve OS/FS products of other developers
improve my job opportunities
Signaling
get a reputation in OS/FS community
distribute not marketable software products
make money Monetary
Reason to continue with F/LOSS 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
Reason to start F/LOSS % of Respondents
© 2002 International Institute of Infonomics
source: Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) Study of Developers
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12. Comunity and the enterprise: the Engineering Group’s case study
FREE SOFTWARE AS THE KNOWLEDGE SPREAD AND
SHARING (COMMONS)
PARTICIPATION IN GLOBAL COMMUNITIES
ECOSYSTEM-BASED MODEL
economic model based on
pure open source
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13. Economic models based on FLOSS
PRODUCT-CENTRIC PROJECT-CENTRIC
dual-licensing/open-core
proprietary licensing sale
the project adapts itself to the product
pure open source
purchase of support and consulting services
the product includes the users’ requirements:
- it adapts itself to the project needs (real value)
- it grows over time integrating innovations
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14. SpagoBI
Services and solutions:
Cloud BI
Mobile BI
The only BI suite 100% Open On-demand BI
Source forever, suitable to the Real-time BI
development of Business Agile BI
Intelligence projects in an Location Intelligence
integrated and very flexible
environment
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15. SpagoBI community
Integrators
Developers
Users
Analysts, researchers and students
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16. Motivations and expectations of SpagoBI community
Free of charge and available:
software
documentation
easy of use
support
information
Poor sharing, scanty of feedbacks!
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17. Free software
Free software is not free of charge,
but it is collaboration and sharing
giving is no-sense
unless we give in order to share
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18. Communications and incentives
Participants categorization
Different languages to different categories
Preparation of incentives
Reaffirmation of basic values
“Why contributors should trust Engineering Group?
Because of the concreteness of its statements and of its actions.”
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19. Actions
More information (use, extensions, promotion, contributions)
More tools (mail, forum, wiki, tracker, continuous integration, test)
More communication (suggestions, actions, visibility)
Quality data (product, process, participation)
More success stories (project plus user experiences)
More support to research and education (presentations, master thesis,
stages)
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20. Expectations
Transparency, openness, collaboration, trust
Knowledge and experience sharing
Value is not only profit, but:
“a factor not just resulting from the sum of the values coming from the
single contributions, but it is set on the background of the values and
interdependencies shared by the different actors voluntarily and
actively contributing to its creation.”
Source : Pilotti, Ganzaroli, 2006
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21. Lessons learned
CREATION OF COMMUNITIES AND NETWORKS
NON-QUANTITATIVE VALUE
RELATIONSHIP OF TRUST
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22. Is it the right time now?
Yesterday (2003)
“The present generations are living through a period requiring intense social and
institutional creativity. There is a growing sense of urgency that leads to many
proposals coming forth, of greater or lesser scope, with greater or lesser ambition,
going from alternative economic theories to practical measures and policies.
There is also ample scope for redirecting business imagination and
technological innovation towards the deeper transformation of world
society, through developing truly knowledge intensive ways of producing
and living.”
Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital, Carlota Perez, 2003
Today:
New rules and values
http://www.thenation.com/reimagining-capitalism
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23. A possible model of growth
We must stand on the sidelines in a proactive way, pre-adapting
ourselves to what is going to happen. We have to generate a potential
stock and, even if we don’t know “when” we will have to use it, we must
have a clear knowledge of “how” we will use it.
Looking at the value to produce sustainability.
Veering if the wind turns
We must look at the future, keeping our eyes and mind open:
- investing in network relations feeding our own ecosystem
- develop knowledge complementarity in order to adopt a way of
thinking which is pre-adapted to future changes.
Credits to: http://fr.freepik.com e www.clipartgratis.it
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24. Live the community
Sharing and open collaboration
Altruism and trustworthiness as the base of the knowledge society
Gift and gratuitousness along with sharing and participation
creation of the “right value”
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25. Throw the net
Thanks to this unknown Cambodian fishermen
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26. References
more resources: www.spagoworld.org
ecology of value: www.spagoworld.org/blog/
comments: www.linkedin.com (gruppo: SpagoWorld)
www.twitter.com (@gruffatti)
mailto: gabriele.ruffatti@eng.it
bibliografy: Quale rapporto tra aziende e comunità nel software libero?
Conference proceedings
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