Published 02.28.08
Professor Tony Wasserman has been asked to speak on “The Business of Open Source” at this year’s Java One conference Tuesday, May 6th at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. An abstract of his talk follows:
The Business of Open SourceFor many years, free and open source software was exclusively
associated with the research community, in contrast to
the closed source products developed by commercial software
vendors. Over the past decade, there has been a vast increase
in the availability of open source software, growing from such
projects as Linux and Apache. Open source software is being
widely adopted in industry, which has led to numerous business
opportunities for entrepreneurs and vendors. This activity
is having a disruptive effect on the software industry that
has affected even the largest software vendors. This keynote
talk presents an historical perspective on the emergence of
open source business, describes the growing commercialization
of open source, outlines some of the business models used by
companies, and offers some predictions for future directions
related to the business of open source.
