@inbook {1741, title = {First Results About Motivation and Impact of License Changes in Open Source Projects}, booktitle = {Open Source Systems: Adoption and Impact}, series = {IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology}, volume = {451}, year = {2015}, pages = {137-145}, publisher = {Springer International Publishing}, organization = {Springer International Publishing}, abstract = {Free and open source software is characterized by the freedoms and criteria that are warranted by specific licenses. These licenses describe the rights and duties of the licensors and licensees. However, a licensing change may be necessary in the life of an open source project to meet legal developments or to allow the implementation of new business models. This paper examines the motivations and impacts of license changes in open source projects. After a state of the art on the subject, a set of case studies where projects changed their license is presented. Then a set of motivations to change licenses, the ways to legally make this change, the problems caused by this change and a set of benefits of the license change are discussed. }, keywords = {Business model, Contributor agreement, intellectual property, license, open source}, isbn = {978-3-319-17836-3}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-319-17837-0_13}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17837-0_13}, author = {Viseur, Robert and Gregorio Robles}, editor = {Damiani, Ernesto and Frati, Fulvio and Dirk Riehle and Wasserman, Anthony I.} } @conference {1693, title = {Initial Results from the Study of the Open Source Sector in Belgium}, booktitle = {The International SymposiumProceedings of The International Symposium on Open Collaboration - OpenSym {\textquoteright}14}, year = {2014}, pages = {1 - 5}, publisher = {ACM Press}, organization = {ACM Press}, address = {Berlin, GermanyNew York, New York, USA}, abstract = {The economy of FLOSS (Free and open source software) has been the subject of numerous studies and publications, particularly on the issue of business models. However, there are fewer studies on the local networks of FLOSS providers. This research focuses on the ecosystem of Belgian FLOSS providers and, more specifically, their geographical distribution, the activities, technologies and software they support, their business models, their economic performance and the relationships between companies. The research is based on a directory containing nearly 150 companies. This directory led to the creation of a specialized search engine that helped to improve annotation. The research also uses financial data provided by the Belgian Central Balance Sheet Office. The initial results of this study show a concentration in major economic areas. The businesses are more active in the services and are heavily involved activities such as infrastructure software and Web development, activities which were common in the early years of free software development. Services for the support of business software is also common. A first analysis of the graph of relationships between providers{\textquoteright} websites highlights the role that is played by the multinational IT companies, by FLOSS editors, by commercial FLOSS associations and especially by the Walloon centers of competence that offer vast training catalogs that are dedicated to FLOSS. This research opens up many perspectives for improving the automation of the company directory updates, the analysis of the relationship between enterprises, and the automation of the financial analysis of companies. }, isbn = {9781450330169}, doi = {10.1145/2641580.2641591}, author = {Viseur, Robert} } @book {1533, title = {Identifying Success Factors for the Mozilla Project}, series = {IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology Open Source Software: Quality Verification}, volume = {404}, year = {2013}, pages = {45 - 60}, publisher = {Springer Berlin Heidelberg}, organization = {Springer Berlin Heidelberg}, address = {Berlin, Heidelberg}, abstract = { The publication of the Netscape source code under free software license and the launch of the Mozilla project constitute a pioneering initiative in the field of free and open source software. However, five years after the publication came years of decline. The market shares rose again after 2004 with the lighter Firefox browser. We propose a case study covering the period from 1998 to 2012. We identify the factors that explain the evolution of the Mozilla project. Our study deepens different success factors identified in the literature. It is based on authors{\textquoteright} experience as well as the abundant literature dedicated to the Netscape company and the Mozilla project. It particularly highlights the importance of the source code complexity, its modularity, the responsibility assignment and the existence of an organisational sponsorship.}, isbn = {978-3-642-38928-3}, issn = {1868-422X}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-642-38928-3_4}, author = {Viseur, Robert}, editor = {Petrinja, Etiel and Succi, Giancarlo and Ioini, Nabil and Sillitti, Alberto} } @proceedings {1461, title = {From Open Source Software to Open Source Hardware}, volume = {378}, year = {2012}, month = {09/2012}, pages = {286-291}, publisher = {IFIP AICT, Springer}, abstract = {The open source software principles progressively give rise to new initiatives for culture (free culture), data (open data) or hardware (open hardware). The open hardware is experiencing a significant growth but the business models and legal aspects are not well known. This paper is dedicated to the economics of open hardware. We define the open hardware concept and determine intellectual property tools we can apply to open hardware, with a strong focus on open source licenses and practices. We next conduct some case studies in order to determine which licenses and business models are used by open hardware companies. We show some strong similarities with open source software and propose new opportunities for future works.}, author = {Viseur, Robert} }