what are the costs of open source ?? Jáchym Čepický
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what are the costs of open
source ??Jáchym Čepický
what is are the costs price
of open source FOSS ??Jáchym Čepický
Jáchym Čepický
OSGeo.org
● Member
● Board member (2012-2015)
● Secretary
Open source software developer, contributor, user
● GRASS GIS
● PyWPS
● OpenLayers, …
● http://opengeolabs.cz
Cleerio inc.
I do Open Source and Free software!!
Started to use Linux: 2002
First contribution to GRASS GIS: 2003
What I think, I do
I do Open Source and Free software!!
Started to use Linux: 2002
First contribution to GRASS GIS: 2003
What I usually do
PyWPS
Implementation of OGC Web Processing Service in Python programming
language on server side.
● Started 2006
● About to release version 4.0 (new code base, Python3 support, …)
● 35 members of mailing list
● ± 40 contributors
● http://pywps.org
What are the costs of FOSS?
Open source and free software from point of view of
● Business
○ Using
○ Producing
● Individual developer
○ Contributing
○ Working for company, which is open source positive
● Society
○ Public sector using open source
○ Teaching open source
Open source and free software from point of view of
● Business
○ Using
○ Producing
● Individual developer
○ Contributing
○ Working for company, which is open source positive
● Society
○ Public sector using open source
○ Teaching open source
Let’s talk about costs
Fixed vs Variable Costs
Total costs = fixed + variable
Changing charging policy
→
FOSS is for free
FOSS costs
Business point of view
Producing × Using
Open source is not business model ...
Open source is development model.
Costs of using FOSS
Getting the software
Training
Management, actualisation
Licence management
Testing
...
t
c
Proprietary
FOSS
Benefits of using FOSS
● Software with low costs, lower fixed costs
● Features are are looking for can be implemented by someone else
● Support from community
● Common good
● Recruitment from community
Release early, release often!
- RERO
Release early, release often!
Upgrade early, upgrade often!
- RERO
Release early, release often!
Upgrade early, upgrade often!
Fix it early, fix it often!
- RERO
$ pip install --upgrade
$ npm install
$ apt-get update && apt-get distupgrade
...
● http://openlayers.org
● Event model change
○ The goog.events event system was replaced with our own lightweight event system. This significally reduces
the build size (#4711). Replacement of other goog.* components with ES5 features or custom code marks a
huge step towards the complete removal of the Closure Library dependency.
● Estimated costs: 6 man-months of development time
○ one developer to get our code base in line with new version
● Meanwhile in OpenLayers code base: 3.19.0 is out
Case study 1: Updating OpenLayers 3.13→3.14
Costs of Enterprise producing Open Source
● Direct costs
○ Analysis
○ Programming, development
● Indirect costs
○ Bug fixing
○ Testing
○ Documentation
○ i18n
○ Support
Costs of Enterprise producing Open Source
● Direct costs
○ Analysis
○ Programming, development
● Indirect costs
○ Bug fixing
○ Testing
○ Documentation
○ i18n
○ Support
Community helps you with some software development
costs
Bug fixing, Testing, Documentation, i18n, Support
Bulding a community
is (hard) work (costs) too...
● “Fair traid open source”
● Contribute back
○ With code
○ With money
○ With support
● Make it to your company’s culture
Being good open source citizen
I never managed to successfully adopt
FOSS way of doing software in any
company.
Open source and free software from point of view of
● Business
○ Using
○ Producing
● Individual developer
○ Contributing
○ Working for company, which is open source positive
● Society
○ Public sector using open source
○ Teaching open source
Contributing to FOSS
● Freedom
○ To study
○ To modify
○ To distribute
● Fun
● Community → Friends
Community → Friends & Fun
You are never alone with the community...
It’s about freedom
● Freedom to combine various tools → no vendor lock
● Building your community impact → chance being recognised
● Pick the right tool → do not stick to one technology, to cover it’s costs
● To leave - and still not loosing any work, you’ve done
Working for company, which is open source positive
Leave with all the tools in your Github
The bad parts
● Autonomy
○ Solve problems - Looking for mailing lists, forums, Google, asking questions
○ Not suitable for work in team - you have to learn it
● Open source/community Burn-out
FOSS burn out
Commits in last 2 years: 0 - 75/month
Variables: Work, events, family, energy, free time...
Case study: PyWPS
You can not work in more then one
garden for long time periode.
Work vs. your
project
Open source and free software from point of view of
● Business
○ Using
○ Producing
● Individual developer
○ Contributing
○ Working for company, which is open source positive
● Society
○ Public sector using open source
○ Teaching open source
Prefering FOSS in public sector
● Public control
● Lower costs
● No vendor lock
Prefering FOSS in education
● More students can get the software
● Experimenting
● Teaching generic principles, not software packages
● Autonomy, responsibility, community feeling
Case study: Open Card (Prague)
● 2006 → 2016
● 1 vendor (owned all the source code and copyrights)
● prorietary system
● 89,2 * 10^6 → 1 * 10^9
Result: It was easier to drop the project and start from scratch.
FOSS,
how can it work?
Q&A
Jáchym Čepický
@jachymc
https://github.com/jachym
Cleerio | OpenGeoLabs
Visit my GeoPython workshop!!
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