Community Open Source Development:

The Possibilities for Innovators

Raymond G. O’Brien

ARC CTO for IT

January 27, 2012

I Have an Idea

February 3, 2012

It starts with an

idea – or maybe

even a rough

vision

You want to develop the idea with

others (with the same interest,

passion, desire, etc.)

February 3, 2012

What are the choices?

February 3, 2012

Encourage informal internal pursuit (think Google Time)

Initiate a formal house development project staffed with

employees, interns

Contact for engineering and development services

Award a grant

Establish a formal partnership with a public or private

entity

Respond to a call for proposals

Start your own business

Do nothing; wait

Or…

Start or join a Community Open Source

Development Project

February 3, 2012

Two Open Source Development

Approaches

Cathedral –

development by an

exclusive group

Bazaar –

development by a

community

2/3/2012

A Community Brings A Lot To The Table

February 3, 2012

Diverse skills and experience

Different perspectives

Different priorities and motivations

Energy and passion

A combined sense of purpose

An exciting example from NASA

February 3, 2012

NASA uses commercially available products whenever

possible

But sometimes choice is limited and there is an

opportunity for NASA to enhance a sector of IT

I

Innovation in Cloud

Computing

There was this project called Nebula

February 3, 2012

The Nebula team had an idea (or

more accurately, a grand vision)

February 3, 2012

NASA would work with a world-wide community of

developers to build an open source cloud stack

It was achieved!

February 3, 2012

In July 2010, Rackspace and NASA each contributed the

foundational components of Openstack

» A new open source development community was formed overnight

In just 18 months, its growth has been phenomenal

» 2300+ community members; 150 corporations

It Happened

vxccxvxcv

2/3/2012

World-wide development

community

February 3, 2012

OpenStack Metrics

February 3, 2012

First bug reported 8 minutes after launch; fixed 12

minutes later

30 companies within first month, 50 within eight months;

150 today

2300 members of the development community

Named #2 and #4 most popular new open source

projects in 2010 as measured by Black Duck

In first month, Iphone, Ipad, and Android interfaces

created

Selected by Canonical for Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud

Selected by HP and AT&T for delivering public cloud

services; chosen by Dell for private cloud offerings

Mapping Open Source Development

to NASA’s Open Government Plan

Aligns perfectly with

the Plan’s 3 major

tenets:

» Transparency

» Collaboration

» Participation

Flagship initiative

2/3/2012

Mapping Open Source Development

to NASA’s Open Data Plan

NASA’s public data

sets are intended to

be processed and

manipulated

New policy being

pursued will allow

NASA to participate

in SW development

with the public

towards this end

2/3/2012

NASA’s new code.nasa.gov site

2/3/2012

Community Open Source

Development: The Possibilities for

Innovators

Address a gap

Create standards

Pursue a vision

Build, enhance, or support a

community

Leverage inherent

characteristics of

transparency, collaboration,

and participation

Practice public-private

collaboration

Start a movement

Create niche capabilities

Share your knowledge

Test an idea

Achieve a goal sooner

Demonstrate a success as

basis for …

Expose security and other

mechanisms to scrutiny for

finding flaws

Create missing interfaces

Create competition

Influence direction

Build an open foundation for

a new product, business

Differentiate

Create economic advantage

2/3/2012

In Summary

Community open source development provides an

exciting and proven option for innovators to turning ideas,

visions, and plans to reality

However, remember to do your homework:

» Intellectual property, export control, and security details can be

complex

» Make the investment in gaining the necessary understanding of the

open source model and associated licensing

The rewards can be staggering!

2/3/2012