Open Source Projects
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Y L F M A E T Brought to you by Team FLY® Team-Fly® Page i Managing Open Source Projects A Wiley Tech Brief Jan Sandred Wiley Computer Publishing John Wiley & Sons, Inc. NEW YORK • CHICHESTER • WEINHEIM • BRISBANE • SINGAPORE • TORONTO Page ii Publisher: Robert Ipsen Editor: Cary Sullivan Assistant Editor: Christina Berry Managing Editor: Marnie Wielage New Media Editor: Brian Snapp Text Design & Composition: Pronto Design, Inc. Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. In all instances where John Wiley & Sons, Inc., is aware of a claim, the product names appear in initial capital or ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. Readers, however, should contact the appropriate companies for more complete information regarding trademarks and registration. Copyright © 2001 by Jan Sandred. All rights reserved. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 750-4744. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158-0012, (212) 850-6011, fax (212) 850-6008, E-Mail: PERMREQ @ WILEY.COM. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. This title is also available in print as ISBN 0 -471-40396-2 (paper) For more information about Wiley products, visit our web site at www.Wiley.com Page iii Wiley Tech Brief Series Other titles in this series: • The Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), by Steve Mann and Scott Sbihli, ISBN: 0-471-3999-2 • Palm Enterprise Applications, by Ray Rischpater, ISBN: 0-471-39379-7 • Wireless Internet Enterprise Applications, by Chetan Sharma, ISBN: 0-471-38382 -7 • Application Service Providers, by Traver Gruen-Kennedy, ISBN: 0-471-39491-2 • Cryptography and E-Commerce, by Jon Graff, ISBN: 0-471-40574 -4 • Enterprise Application Integration, by William Ruh, Francis X. Maginnis, William Brown, ISBN: 0-471- 37641-8 Page iv Page v To my wife Annika Page vi Page vii Contents Acknowledgments xi Introduction xiii Chapter 1 An Open Source Primer 1 The Birth of the Internet 1 First Key Internet Technology 5 Unix 5 Sun Microsystems: The Network Is the Computer 7 The Shared Ethic 8 Email 10 Xanadu 10 Mosaic from NCSA 12 Free Software Foundation 14 Linux 15 Cathedrals and Bazaars 18 Others Follow Netscape's Example 20 Summary 22 Page viii Chapter 2 Open Source in Business Terms 23 A Gift Economy 24 In Commercial Terms 25 Licenses, Licenses, Licenses 26 An Open Economy 29 Brooks' Law 31 Do Commercial Interests Combine with Voluntariness? 33 Open Maintenance 34 Summary 35 Chapter 3 The Open Source Philosophy 37 Shareware, Freeware, and Public Domain 38 Electronic Frontier Foundation 41 Free Software Movement 44 Open Source 46 The Open Source Definition (Version 1.7) 48 OSI Certified Mark 50 Transcopyright 51 A New Openness 51 Open Content 53 Summary 57 Chapter 4 Open Source and the Internet Economy 59 Open as a Business Strategy 60 Try It First Information 63 Standards 65 Network Effects 66 Expectation Management 67 Positive Feedback 68 Prosumers 70 Summary 71 Chapter 5 Network Organizations 73 Different Types of Networks 74 Page ix Hierarchy or Collaboration? 75 More Definitions 77 Open Source Networks 78 Summary 79 Chapter 6 Managing a Virtual Team 81 The Paradigm Shift 81 General Principles of Organization 82 Network Organizations 83 It All Depends on Trust 84 Business Development Networks 87 Global Virtual Teams 89 Lead Rather Than Manage 92 Open Management and Cultural Importance 93 Flat Organizations and Short Power Distance 95 Summary 99 Chapter 7 Managing Distributed Open Source Projects 101 The Open Source Team 103 Network or Virtual Organization? 103 Principal Differences 104 Relationship Management 106 Trust and Respect 107 Knowledge Management 111 Technology Management 112 Project Management Activities 114 Motivation Encourages Project Collaboration 115 Necessary Competencies 116 Groupware 119 Choosing the Right Product 124 Obtaining a Critical Mass 126 Interfaces and Documentation 129 Human Interaction 130 Summary 130 Page x Chapter 8 Tools for Building Open Source Products 133 Version Handling Systems 134 Problem Reporting Tools 139 Summary 143 Chapter 9 Open Source Tool Tips 145 Software 145 Knowledge Base Systems 150 Enterprise Resource Planning 151 Other Resources 152 Summary 154 Chapter 10 Setting Up an Open Source Project 155 Motivations for Open Source 155 Open Source Methodology 157 Build a Team 161 Clearinghouses 164 Summary 166 Chapter 11 Open Source Management Anecdotes 167 Open Aid to Developing Countries 168 Even the Largest Sites Use Open Source 168 Time Is the Critical Factor in Open Source 170 Summary Y 172 Chapter 12 Are You Ready for Open Source? L 173 Practical Advice F 173 Open Source Benefits 175 The Five Open Source Commandments M 177 Social Aspects of Open Source 178 A Index 181 E T Team-Fly® Page xi Acknowledgments Thanks to: Johan Hjelm, Ericsson, W3C Advisory Committee (http://www.wireless-information.net), for the original idea. Ulf Engström, Etiska Institutet (http://www.etiskainstitutet.org), for teaching the human aspect. Karl -König Königsson, Chronologic (http://www.chronologic.com), for the basics in open source. Mona Cunningham, Crealog iDS (http://www.idsuppsala.com), for being an invaluable sounding board. Bo Gahm, Strategic Management Training (http://www.smtraining.se), for fresh management theories in business networking and key customer management. Lars-Olof Landin and Peder Bylin, of Efficient Business Communications, for reminding us that forming relationships and engaging in dialog are still the best competitive marketing tools. Christina Berry at John Wiley & Sons, Inc., for being a very patient editor. Page xii Page xiii Introduction Human beings are forever living between a better future and the good old days. HENRIK TIKKANEN rguably, open source is the twentieth century's only true innovative concept in business, all that is truly new in the new economy. All Open source can be defined, basically, as a software developing method. (If the source for a piece of software can be read, redistributed, and modified, it is said to be open; it evolves— it can be improved, adapted, and corrected.) Open source is also referred to— rightly — as the ‘‘gift economy,” because for many people, open source means, simply, software that is given away for free. However, those definitions leave out a very important— if not the most important— aspect of open source: that it is also a valid business concept with truly unique characteristics. It is this second aspect that this book addresses: the business opportunities open source provides, and how to manage successful open source projects. To understand the concept of open source it is necessary to be acquainted with its history. Open source has its roots in a sort of “flower-power, left-wing anar-cho-communism” political arena, a far remove from today's multimillion international open source companies, such as Red Hat, Inc. Open source builds on the idea of giving away intellectual property for the benefit of the community— “What is good for the community is good for me.” In the two-plus decades following the May 1968 revolution, the vision of life without interference from the state or the marketplace has inspired numerous community media activists. Consider as one example, the cultural, free radio stations created in the sixties and the seventies in Europe; they refused all Page xiv funding from state and commercial sources, choosing instead, to rely on donations of both time and money from their supporters. During the late 1970s the punk movement further popularized these attitudes. Although rapidly commercialized, this type of subculture did encourage its members to form their own bands, design their own fashions, and publish their own fanzines. This participatory ethic continues to shape innovative music and political platforms today. For one, the Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens (ATTAC) is an international movement that seeks democratic control of financial markets and their institutions. It was founded in December 1997, based on an idea in an article published in Le Monde Diplomatique (www.monde- diplomatique.fr/en/1997/12/leader). This brings us back to the idea of a gift economy, one that arises from abundance, not scarcity — though abundance should not be interpreted to mean a wealth of material possessions, for gift cultures are active in cultures such as the aboriginal, whose people who live in so-called ecozones, marked by mild climates and abundant food. Abundance of this sort makes “command ” relationships difficult to sustain, and renders exchange relationships an almost pointless game. Social status is determined not by what people control, but by what they give away. With this in mind, it becomes clear that the society of open source programmers, too, have created a gift economy. There is no serious shortage of survival necessities— in this case, mainly time— but also disk space, network bandwidth, and computing power— software is freely shared. In such a situation, the only accurate measure of competitive success is one's reputation among one's peers. The scientific community has long functioned within a gift economy, albeit from a totally different perspective.