Open Source Progress

Together with some colleauges, I've written an article that was submitted to the Open Source Software Forum in Porto Alegre in April. We'll hear more if it was accepted 17/03.

The ideas are generated after thinking about corporate software use and licensing. The license costs in that area are huge.

The difference between corporate open-source vs. desktop open-source is that there is more "utility" for desktop opensource apps for any particular user and the user base is much larger.

Probably this is why there are so little corporate opensource projects available. I'm not talking about Apache webserver, Struts, JBoss or other projects. Those are platform projects. I'm more talking about specific solutions for specific companies, like CRM / HR / ERP / workflow etc. Yes, projects exist here and there, but the momentum behind them is very low.

So the idea was to generate an additional driver (money) behind opensource development, whilst keeping it open. We do this by proposing cooperatives that drive a system's development in cooperation with many other cooperatives across the globe. Ideologically speaking approaching an idea like syndication of some sorts and a main controlling body when the project gets out of hand.

We've analyzed the difference mostly from an economic perspective (the reason why anybody should even care or look into it, since opensource adoption by itself is hardly a goal). Next article we hope to present is more targeted at the specific composition and organization behind the cooperatives.