there is more to innovation than secret science and patents!
TRANSCRIPT
Opportunities to foster
innovation based on Free and
Open Source Software (FOSS)
There is more to innovation than
secret science and patents!
Prof Derek W. KeatsDeputy Vice Chancellor
(Knowledge & Information Management)
The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
http://[email protected]
What do I mean
by innovation?
Having a new idea
Implementing it in technology
Taking it through to operation
a business
a new organizational or
business process
a new product or service
something that changes the
way we do things
Intellectual Property Rights from Publicly Financed Research and Development Regulations (April)
disappointingly modern for a
post-modern world
one dimensional
Freedom 1 and Freedom 3 require the source code
The four freedoms of
Free Software
Barriers to
innovation
Starting
point
Knowledge
Permission
Successful innovation
Cost
No such thing as scratch
Operating systems
Compilers
Programming
languages
Core
applications
No such thing as scratch
Operating systems
Databases
Webserver
Compilers
Programming
languages
Scripting languages
Frameworks
Digital
object store
Libraries
Core
applications
Version management
Scalability tools
Load balance
No such thing as scratch
Operating systems
Databases
Webserver
Compilers
Programming
languages
Scripting languages
Frameworks
Digital
object store
Libraries
Core
applications
Version management
Desktop applications
Web applications
Integrated
development
environment
Embedded
environments
Testing tools
Scalability tools
Load balance
Deployment tools
Complete applications
Communities
use
study
adapt
Collaboration
tools
Built on a stack of FOSS applications and libraries using
a suite of FOSS development and collaboration tools
Fedoragstreamer
GNU/Linux PHPMySQL PEAROpen
OfficeSWF
toolsCURLChisimbaFFmpegThe stack
JavaPythonFlashOpen
fireRED5JavascriptjQueryextJSJabberCross platform
RESTful APIAjaxMashableXMPPMobile phoneOnline package
management
Version 4 will be
fully distributed & cloud-ready
prototypeSWORDOpen
Zoom
software
engineering
software
engineering
software
engineering
software
engineering
Knowledge
When you have an idea, limited
coding experience, and few resources,
how do you learn to code it?
Free Software as a learning
resourceDissect
Study
Use
Community as a learning
resource
Permissions
Every permission is a barrier
Proprietary licenses severely limit permissions
Every permission may also have a cost
It may be extremely difficult to determine what permissions you need early in a projector what it will cost to acquire them
Even without the cost factor, the
permissions alone can be enough
to reduce the likelihood of success
Please sir, I want
to license two more
CPUs
Cost
Start-up costs
Scaling out costs
Lock-in costs
Maleability costs
Some recent major
software innovations
Started in parents garage in Durbanville in 1995
Still a student at UCT when he started experimenting
VeriSign acquired Thawte for US$575 million in 1999
Started Canonical and Ubuntu GNU/Linux to give back to FOSS.
Some recent major
software innovations
Founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanford University
Maxed out their credit cards to buy hardware
Became a private company on September 4, 1998
Larry & Sergey #5 on Forbes list in 1997 with a net worth of $18.5 billion each
Some recent major
software innovations
Launched Facebook from Harvard University dorm room on February 4, 2004
Time magazine named Zuckerberg as one of The World's Most Influential People of 2008
Market value of $15 billion in 2007
Mark Zuckerberg
Scarcity
Abundance
Proprietary softwareFree softwareThe scarcity is entirely artificially maintained
ScarcityAbundance
PermissionEverything is forbidden unless it is permittedEverything is permitted unless it is forbidden
Social modelPaternalism ("We know what's best")Egalitarianism ("You know what's best")
Profit planBusiness model drives investmentLets do it, we'll figure something out
Decision processTop down, rule driven
Bottom up, experimental
Organizational
structureCommand and control, planned and managedOut of control,
unplanned,
perpetual beta
CostFull cost of all ingredients, permission costsMarginal
costs,
business process only
KnowledgeProtected, controlled, secretShared, freely available, no secrets
Starting pointClose to the bottomClose to the top
-- modified after Chris Anderson, Free: The Future of a Radical Price
ProductProcessModelCharacteristics
Use existingThe organisation uses existing FOSS tools, such as GNU/Linux, and does not contribute to their development.
Adapt existingThe organisation makes minor adaptations of exist-ing tools to serve its own peculiar business needs.
Sponsor a projectThe organisation sponsors an external agency to create a tool on its behalf, and may assist that agency to locate other sponsors who could join the project.
Join a projectThe organisation puts resources, either money or a software developer, into an existing project.
Create a projectThe organisation creates a new project, puts its own developers onto writing the software and seeks other sponsors or others who may join the project.
FOSS strategies
ProductProcessModelCharacteristics
Use existingThe organisation uses existing FOSS tools, such as GNU/Linux, and does not contribute to their development.
Adapt existingThe organisation makes minor adaptations of exist-ing tools to serve its own peculiar business needs.
Sponsor a projectThe organisation sponsors an external agency to create a tool on its behalf, and may assist that agency to locate other sponsors who could join the project.
Join a projectThe organisation puts resources, either money or a software developer, into an existing project.
Create a projectThe organisation creates a new project, puts its own developers onto writing the software and seeks other sponsors or others who may join the project.
FOSS strategies
Early
innovationModelCharacteristics
Use existingThe organisation uses existing FOSS tools, such as GNU/Linux, and does not contribute to their development.
Adapt existingThe organisation makes minor adaptations of exist-ing tools to serve its own peculiar business needs.
Sponsor a projectThe organisation sponsors an external agency to create a tool on its behalf, and may assist that agency to locate other sponsors who could join the project.
Join a projectThe organisation puts resources, either money or a software developer, into an existing project.
Create a projectThe organisation creates a new project, puts its own developers onto writing the software and seeks other sponsors or others who may join the project.
FOSS strategies
FOSS strategies
Use
Adapt
Join
Sponsor
Create
Strength of ecosystem
Low barriers
to innovation
Does this only apply to software?
May be consumed by one consumer without preventing simultaneous consumption by othersConsumption by one consumer prevents simultaneous consump-tion by other consumers
Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn being awarded the Presidential
Medal of Freedom by President Bush, image from
Wikipedia
I just had to take the hypertext idea and connect it to the Transmission Control Protocol and domain name system ideas and ta-da! the World Wide Web
Sir Tim Berners-Lee and the first webserver fromWikipedia
When core things are free and open, there are no barriers to innovation.
When Bob Khan and I created TCP/IP and a bunch of us built a platform for internetworking, we did not patent the technologies used. We set TCP/IP free. Had we not done so, it is doubtful if the Internet as we know it today would have come into being.
The freedom given by Cerf and Khan, and Berners-Lee, together with Free Software made it possible.
The original Google servers, from Wikipedia
Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn being awarded the Presidential
Medal of Freedom by President Bush, image from
Wikipedia
I just had to take the hypertext idea and connect it to the Transmission Control Protocol and domain name system ideas and ta-da! the World Wide Web
Sir Tim Berners-Lee and the first webserver fromWikipedia
When core things are free and open, there are no barriers to innovation.
When Bob Khan and I created TCP/IP and a bunch of us built a platform for internetworking, we did not patent the technologies used. We set TCP/IP free. Had we not done so, it is doubtful if the Internet as we know it today would have come into being.
The freedom given by Cerf and Khan, and Berners-Lee, together with Free Software made it possible.
The original Google servers, from Wikipedia
Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn being awarded the Presidential
Medal of Freedom by President Bush, image from
Wikipedia
I just had to take the hypertext idea and connect it to the Transmission Control Protocol and domain name system ideas and ta-da! the World Wide Web
Sir Tim Berners-Lee and the first webserver fromWikipedia
When core things are free and open, there are no barriers to innovation.
When Bob Khan and I created TCP/IP and a bunch of us built a platform for internetworking, we did not patent the technologies used. We set TCP/IP free. Had we not done so, it is doubtful if the Internet as we know it today would have come into being.
The freedom given by Cerf and Khan, and Berners-Lee, together with Free Software made it possible.
The original Google servers, from Wikipedia
Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn being awarded the Presidential
Medal of Freedom by President Bush, image from
Wikipedia
I just had to take the hypertext idea and connect it to the Transmission Control Protocol and domain name system ideas and ta-da! the World Wide Web
Sir Tim Berners-Lee and the first webserver fromWikipedia
When core things are free and open, there are no barriers to innovation.
When Bob Khan and I created TCP/IP and a bunch of us built a platform for internetworking, we did not patent the technologies used. We set TCP/IP free. Had we not done so, it is doubtful if the Internet as we know it today would have come into being.
The freedom given by Cerf and Khan, and Berners-Lee, together with Free Software made it possible.
The original Google servers, from Wikipedia
Bioinformatics
the open sharing of the algorithms and methods used to make new observations from biological data drove the explosion in bioinformatics
Data are often openly shared according to FOSS type licenses
Software is often FOSS and shared as well
Activation energy
Publicly
funded
science?
The world produces 103
scientific research papers
per million people
The USA produces 690 and
Canada 723 scientific research papers per million people
Africa produces 8.2 scientific research papers per million
people
We need to reduce barriers to
innovation, not increase them
The output of scientific research that is only published in ways that are only accessible to some people, or that is locked up in the newly altered form of patents that are designed to withhold disclosure and lengthen monopoly privileges.Secret science
Final message
There are always barriers to innovation.
The more barriers you create, the less innovation you will get.
Every permission is a barrier.
Secret science and patents nouveau are not the only way to foster innovation.
Should we not look carefully how public science can best serve the public good?
Currently, we implicitly assume knowledge to be rivalrous, and our laws and policies are based on that implicit assumption.
Don't create barriers, remove them.
Don't control, facilitate!
Say no to
secret science
with public funds!
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Dedicated to the public
domain. You may use it
for any purpose without
permission or attribution.
Attribution file: http://www.dkeats.com/usrfiles/users/
1563080430/attribution/attrib.txt
No
secret
science
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