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Free & Open Source Software(FOSS): Managing Business

The objectives of the course are as proposed:

  • To expose and make aware students of Master of Business Administration about FOSS and its implications on IT and Technology in general.
  • To expose and make aware students of career opportunities and business models with FOSS.
  • To expose and make aware students about Licensing and legal issues with FOSS.
  • To expose and make aware students about the role of and practices for distributed development methodologies and community initiatives in the ecosystem.
  • expose and make aware students about the open ecosystem.

Keywords: Open Source Software, Community Initiatives, Distributed Development, Careers with FOSS,FOSS for Businesses, Open Source Licensing, Open Ecosystem

Unit 1: Introduction to FOSS

What is FOSS; Free Software Definition; The Four Freedoms and what they mean; The Open Source Definition; Free Software Foundation; Open Source Initiative; Evolution of FOSS; What is Proprietary Software; Evolution of Proprietary Software; FOSS vs Proprietary Software;Introduction to Licensing – GPL, Creative Commons; Intellectual Property; Software Patents; Understanding Terms: Free Software/Open Source/FOSS/FLOSS/OSS. Case Studies: GNU/Linux, Mozilla Firefox, LibreOffice, Ushahidi

Unit 2: Developing FOSS Softwares Communities – what, who, how; Developing FOSS – distributed design, implementation, and maintenance; Community Processes – Design/Discussions/Roadmap/Mailing Lists, Version Control, Software Releases, Bug Reporting & Resolution, Marketing & Promotion; Managing Distributed Development – advantages, disadvantages, challenges; Localisation & Internationalisation. Case Studies: Drupal, Joomla, Pentaho, Apache Foundation, Ubuntu, FOSS Manuals

Unit 3: Patents, Licenses & Copyright What is a License; Copyright & Copyleft; Major Licenses – GPL, LGPL, MIT, BSD, Mozilla, Apache, GFDL, Creative Commons; Public Domain; How are licenses applied; Ownership of IP; Forking Open Source projects; Violation of copyrights and remedies; Using Open Source projects in Businesses and Implications; Software Patents; Shared Source vs Open Source.

Excellent reference

Unit 4: Business Models with FOSS Popular Business Models: Training & Support, Subscription and Value Added Services, Community Editions & Business Editions of Softwares, Self Host and Hosted Solutions; Egovernance; Transparent & Responsible Businesses; Outsourcing ­ advantages & disadvantages. Case Studies: Redhat, CentOS, Canonical, Oracle, IBM

Unit 5: The Open Ecosystem Open Formats; Open Standards; Open Hardware; Open Design; Open Access; Open Content; Open Design; Open Innovation; Open Web; Micro­formats; Open ID & oAuth; Ubuntu ecosystem of developers, supporters and users.

Unit 6: Career Opportunities with FOSS Development: Designing, Coding, Testing, Release Management; Language: Documentation,Localisation, Internationalisation; Marketing & Promotion: Advocacy, Evangelism, Marketing,Events; Help & Support; Skill & Merit Building; On the Job Experience with FOSS; Google Summer of Code

Suggested Readings

  • Code: Collaborative Ownership and the Digital Commons, MIT
  • The Success of Open Source by Steven Weber, Harvard University Press
  • [Open Sources- Voices from the Open Source Revolution]­(http://oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/toc.html)
  • The Cathedral and The Bazaar by Eric S Raymond

Suggested Viewing

Web Resources