OLR Open Learning Resources

1. OLROpen Learning Resources

2. OLR • Freedom to • access • copy • modify • redistribute Foote 2005, Doyle 2005 Conditions? Attribution Share-Alike Non-commercial No-modify Educational Other? Matter more in conditions of scarcity, not abundance

3. What resources? Not just courseware… OLR CONTENT CAPACITY TOOLS

4. More than just cost… • we need to consider: • usability • durability • accessibility • effectiveness • Alternate objective: free as in freedom

5. Funding Models Numerous funding models… these vary mostly by source but models have other implications who authors (whose point of view)? who controls (funds, resources) who distributes?

6. Endowment Model • Single large grant • Managed by fund-holder • Funding via interest Eg. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy $US 3 to 4 million fund $190,000 budget

7. Membership Model • Organizations join consortium • Members pay fees • Projects managed collectively Eg. Sakai Eg. MERLOT Eg. OCW Consortium

8. Donations Model • Donations solicited from public • May involve project membership (by individuals) • Project manged by a board Eg. Wikipedia foundation Apache foundation

9. Conversion Model "In the Conversion model, you give something away for free and then convert the consumer of the freebie to a paying customer." Sterne and Herring (2005)

10. Contributor Pay • Creators of resources pay for ‘publication’ • Resources are managed by the publisher charges for this process will be met by funding bodies, such as the Wellcome Trust - 1% of their annual spend. Eg. Public Library of Science But also Think about YouTube, Blogger, Flickr (pro)

11. Sponsorship Model • The ‘public television’ model • Resources are ‘sponsored’ by donors • Usually in return for sponsorship spot Advertising….? Examples MIT iCampus Outreach Initiative (Microsoft) (CORE, 2005) Stanford on iTunes project (Apple)

12. Institutional Model Examples: OpenCourseWare Open Knowledge Initiative OPLC All from MIT • Sponsoring organization pays costs • Considered part of its ‘mandate’ It usually manages it, too… and there may be side-benefits

13. Government Funding Model • Government funds • Usually managed by arms-length board (but not always) • Intended to serve government objectives… Examples OLPC (again) Canada SchoolNet Universities, colleges, schools

14. Barriers Most of the barriers to the sustainability of OERs have nothing to do with money There are billions of free resources out there billions The problem is control… … and ownership

15. The New Model • Adobe: “we want to be the toolmaker” • Google: open source tools OERs today are about giving people the means to create And then stepping out of the way Flickr Facebook YouTube Blogger MySpace Yahoo-Groups Revver Writely Wikipedia LiveJournal WordPress Drupal PHP

16. OECD Report… ‘Giving Knowledge for Free’ ….? So long as we think of OERs as charity… as something we create and that we give to the indigent OERs will never be sustainable

17. Free/open Source Software Development (FOSS/D)

18. What is free/open source software development? • Free (as in “freedom”) vs. open source • Freedom to access, browse/view, study, modify and redistribute the source code • Free is always open, but open is not always free • F/OSSD is not “software engineering” • Different: F/OSSD can be faster, better, and cheaper than SE • F/OSSD involves more software development tools, Web resources, and personal computing resources, compared to traditional SE methods.

19. Use volunteer programmers to create the software; make source code open and available to all users Give Linux operating system away free of charge to those who download it (charge a small fee to users who want a copy on CD) Make money by employing a cadre of technical support personnel who provide technical support to users for a fee Redhat Linux’s Business Model

20. Employ a cadre of highly skilled programmers to develop proprietary code; keep source code hidden from users Sell resulting operating system and software packages to PC makers and users at relatively attractive prices and achieve large unit sales Most costs arise in developing the software; variable costs are small—once breakeven volume is reached, revenues from additional sales are almost pure profit. Provide technical support to users at no cost Microsoft’s Business Model

21. Who is investing in F/OSSD? • Large corporations: (IT and Financial) • IBM-Eclipse, Sun-NetBeans and OpenOffice, HP-Gelato, Apple-Darwin, Microsoft Research-Rotor, SAP-SAPDB/MySQL, etc. • Barclays Global Investors, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein • Mid-size corporations: • RedHat, Novell • Small (start-up) companies: • ActiveState, Collab.Net, Jabber, Ximian, JBoss, Compiere, etc.

22. Findings from F/OSS Studies • CIO 2002-2003: • OSS primarily for new system deployments • OSS benefits • lower capital investment • greater reliability • OSS weaknesses: • lack of in-house skills or skills in labor market, • lack of vendor support or vendor viability • switching costs

23. Findings from F/OSSD Studies • Madey, et al. 2003: • <5% of OSS projects on SourceForge.net sustained; >90% have only one contributor (i.e., Power Law) • Nichols and Twidale 2003: • Usability of F/OSS systems generally neglected • Scacchi 2002-2004: • Largest F/OSSD projects sustain exponential growth; most F/OSSD projects fail to grow to any sustainable effort

24. Motivation for open source processes • Closed source processes: • opaque or tacit, difficult to improve, subject to inappropriate automation by vendors • Open source processes: • Enables continuous process improvement and organizational learning through open access to the “source code” of enterprise processes

26. Configuration management and work coordination • Use CM to coordinate and control who gets to update what part of the system/online artifacts • Many F/OSSD projects use CVS (single centralized code repository with update locks) and frequent releases (daily releases on active projects) • Linux Kernel: BitKeeper (multiple parallel builds and release repositories) • Collab.Net and Tigris.org: Subversion (CVS++) • Apache: Single major release, with frequent “patch” releases (e.g., “A patchy server”) • GNU arch seeks to develop Free CM unification

27. Concurrentversion system (CVS) for coordinatingsource codeupdates

28. Evolutionary redevelopment, reinvention, and redistribution • Overall evolutionary dynamic of F/OSSD is reinvention • Reinvention enables continuous improvement • F/OSS evolve through minor mutations • Expressed, recombined, redistributed via incremental releases • F/OSS systems co-evolve with their development community • Success of one depends on the success of the other • Closed legacy systems may be revitalized via opening and redistribution of their source • When enthusiastic user-developers want their cultural experience with such systems to be maintained.

29. Software technology transfer and licensing • F/OSS technology transfer from existing Web sites is a community and team building process • Not (yet) an engineering process • Enables unanticipated applications and uses • Enables F/OSSD to persist without centrally planned and managed corporate software development centers

30. Free/OSS licenses Reiterate and institutionalize F/OSS culture (values, norms, and beliefs) • GNU Public License (GPL) for free software • More than 40 other open source licenses (http://opensource.org) • “Creative Commons” Project at Stanford Law School developing public license framework (http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/)

31. Implications • F/OSSD is a community building process • not just a technical development process • F/OSS peer review creates a community of peers • F/OSSD processes often iterate daily versus infrequent singular (milestone) Software Life Cycle Engineering events • F/OSSD: frequent, rapid cycle time (easier to improve) vs. • SLC: infrequent, slow cycle time (harder to improve)

32. Conclusions • Developing F/OSS is different than software engineering • not better, not worse, but different and new • more social, more accessible, more convivial • F/OSS systems don’t need and probably won’t benefit from classic software engineering.