Tag: intellectual

The Growing Influence Of Open Source Projects
Two years ago, I began writing about the impact of open source development tools, components, processes and organizational models on corporate IT shops. I worked with a range of development managers that shared a very similar point of view: instead of dismissing the so-called renegade open source projects, the managers emulated these projects' activities and hoped to mimic their success. This trend is only growing and I am intrigued by the ways in which IT shops are looking to the open source community for leadership.

---

Intellectual Property Management Issues for Development

To maximize intellectual property (IP) value and mitigate risk while operating in an open source application development environment, enterprises need to understand the distinction between real and perceived risks and values by utilizing processes, governance and tools. This is particularly important when involving an outsourcing partner. A lack of intellectual property capture and protection makes it harder for the outsourcing company to move from one outsource vendor to another.  As a software development "value chain" evolves over time, with changes in the business and technology environments, the value of leveraging open source software may grow or decrease in value. So it makes sense to understand and review open source arrangements.  In this scenario, if the intellectual properties associated with managing and producing the product are no longer available, significant flexibility will be lost. 

---

Impact of Open Source on Application Development
How is it that the geeky, non-traditional world of open source software is having such a tremendous impact on traditional IT organizations? Development teams, and Agile projects in particular, are increasingly looking to the open source community for tools, application components, best practices and even organizational models for software projects. Of all of the influences in the industry, the advent of open source software is by far the most significant that we've seen in many years.

---