Buiding an Effective Commercial Open Source Strategy 14th September 2009 - Led by Roberto Galoppini, Commercial Open Source Expert

Today enterprise companies and vendors are often adopting open source software components and platforms, but most of the times they lack the proper policies and procedures. This workshop will cover general open source software business and community issues, providing the audience with all information needed to define and implement effective open source policies. Attendees will learn how to assess open source opportunities and risks, understand community issues and come away with an idea of how to obtain competitive advantages through a well-designed open source strategy. Among the open source topics to be addressed are: open source economics, intellectual property management, projects and communities. The workshop will be conducted through a series of units, fostering participation and discussion.

Your Workshop Leader

A computer industry insider of 17 years standing, Roberto has worked in such hands-on roles as programmer and systems analyst as well as being involved at a strategic level in one of the first European Open Source firms, Consortia. He takes an active interest in several free/open source software organisations, including serving on the Advisory Board of the SourceForge and acting as the Institutional Relationship Manager for the OpenOffice.org Italian Association. He researches on the economics of Open Source software from 2003, and he writes almost daily about open source business at his commercial open source blog: http://robertogaloppini.net

09.30 Registration

10.00 Session One: Open Source Economics

Why open source matters (software, business, engineering)

11.00 Break

11.15 Session Two: Projects and Communities Dynamics Governance Issues

Trading off between participation and control Business-centric (MySQL), Project-centric (Linux), Foundation-centric (Eclipse)

12.30 Lunch

13.30 Session Three: Open Source Software in a Business Context

The Software Business versus the Project

Developing and supporting products

Managing submissions in a company context

Marketing your open source community

14.45 Afternoon Coffee

15.00 Session Four: Intellectual Property ManagementA bit of history and context

Licensing from a business perspective

16.15 Conclusions and Questions

17.00 Close of Workshop