Student Projects:Commercial Software Open Source

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How Should Commercial Software Companies React to Open Source

Project Members

James Welle

Rodrick Megraw

Magdalene Tatum

Song Xue

Bipin Karunakaran

Patrick Haluptzok

Project Goals

Commercial software should it go open source? We will be discussing

  • Issues involved in going the open source route
  • Benefits v/s non-benefits(consumers and companies)
  • Examples of sucess v/s failures on Commercial software going open source
  • Alternatives to Open source (code sharing)
  • Legal issues with commercial employees contributing to or reading opensource
  • Is there a middle ground can be achieved between Open Source Software vs Commercial Software?
Project ownership and goals

Project Summary

--Remegraw 22:23, 3 Nov 2004 (PST) Here's a place to collect material for the summary that is due the 8th.

Section 1:

Title: open source Introduction(definiton, history,advantages,disadvantages) and alternatives
Author: Bipin Karunakaran

In this section we will discuss the definition, advantages, disadvantages history and alternatives to open source.
Open source is defined as software to which there is access to source, in addition the software complies with being freely redistributable source code, derived works share the same characteristics of the original, without discrimination to any person or group or fields of endeavor, the distribution license also must not be specific to a product and must not restrict other software, licensing must be technology neutral. Open source has various advantages and disadvantages, advantages include improved reliability of software, cost reduction, no license tracking and in-house feature addition. Disadvantages include legal issues arising out of possible intellectual property violations in the course of the development of the product, cost of maintenance and support, unavailability of expert support if urgently needed. With this wide range of advantages and disadvantages the choice over open source and propriety software can be tricky and boils down to what the application does and how it is used. Open source concept and software is about 25 years old, Richard Stallman is credited with the open source movement, in the 80’s he spent a lot of time working on the OS ITS which was the first OSS. Though Stallman was a smart programmer he will be remembered for his vision on OSS licensing which is laid out in the GNU manifesto. We will explore in detail about advantages, disadvantages and history of OSS in the paper.

Open source software in its pure form with its disadvantages is risky to implement in a commercial setting, are there alternatives to pure open source? A mixture of proprietary and open source software, an excellent example would be Novell which bundles open source software with its proprietary software.

Section 2:

Title: Commercial Software and Open Source Coexistence
Author Patrick Haluptzok

What are the risks for private software companies and open source projects with having software developers who work on commercial software at day and open source at night. Under what circumstances is the open source contaminated with infringing IP by developers, or under what circumstances would the commercial software company's ownership of private source code be jeopradized by employees familiar with similar Open Source modifying it. I'll analyze some of the corporate practices used to protect their software code and lawsuits challenging the validity of open source being free. I'll conclude with best practices that private companies should follow to protect the ownership of their code, and what open source projects need to do to prevent incorporating illegal IP.

Section 3:

Title:
Author: Rodrick Megraw Remegraw

In this section our objective is to examine the open source licensing quagmire from the perspective of a commercial software company. A commercial software company may have many possible motivations to release open source software. These motivations are discussed in detail in other sections of this paper. But once the decision to open source has been made, a firm must decide on the license under which it will release its software. In this section we seek to answer the following questions: What are the common classes of open source licenses? What are the features? What are the pitfalls? What do these mean to a commercial software company? What should a commercial software company consider in choosing an existing open source license? What should it consider in constructing its own license? What are some examples of open sources licenses issued by commercial software companies? In answering these questions we hope to provide a succinct navigational guide for firms seeking an open source licensing model. Sources for this section will include papers by Bob Gomulkiewicz, OSI (www.opensource.org), Chasing Moore's Law¸ and others.

Section 4:

Title:
Author: Song Xue
This section discusses commercial software vs. open source from a fiscal standpoint. Traditional commercial software companies assume all the cost of developing, marketing and supporting their software. In turn, software and the subsequent upgrades are sold or licensed for a fee. Profit is made from the difference of the two. This picture is drastically changed for open source software, which is usually free of charge or for a nominal fee. Since a big chunk of profit is taken out of the equation, how is open source a viable business model? It turns out that open source companies are forced to think outside the box and adopt non-traditional models. Furthermore, there is a flip side of the coin. If executed successfully, the cost of developing, marketing and supporting of open source software is reduced because the larger user community now bears a significant portion of it. This section will contrast the two business models, analyze their real world incarnations, and summarize their strengths and weaknesses, and subsequently their applicability to various software projects.

Section 5:

Title: Case Study: Should Microsoft Open Source its Windows Operating System?
Author: James Welle JamesWelle

This section of the paper will be a case study that attempts to answer the question, "Should Microsoft open source its Windows operating system?" This section will start with a brief review of Microsoft's policy on open-source and how this policy has changed over time. We will then use much of the information in the preceding sections such as different licensing and business models as well as legal issue in order to attempt to come up with a viable open source model for the operating system. We will look at how issues such as operating system security, code quality, piracy, revenue, the ISV ecosystem, product support, and public perception would be affected by such a move. We will compare Microsoft's potential open source plan to those of Apple with OSX, Sun with Open Solaris, and Symbian. Finally, we will make a recommendation as to whether or not Microsoft should open source Windows.

Section 6:

Title: Legal Analysis: Current & Past Legislation of Open Source & Commercial Software Development
Author: Magdalene Tatum mtatum

This section will highlight the legal and market implications of open source and commercial software companies. Should the government impose a standard and extra security measures? What are the proprietary goals, intellectual property rights, and copy left standards? The role that the government plays and all other legal implications will propel the market competition; increase the number of users, and introduce new innovations.

Project Paper Outline

I am going to put the outline of my section up on the wiki. I think it would be good if we all did this because then we can see the specific areas of overlap and we can also get a better idea of everyone's section as well as make comments, suggestions, etc. JamesWelle

pmhalupt

The paper is definitely long enough - we do an extraordinary job of describing open source licenses, the different types, and what they mean - about 6 times : )

I think each section defines/describes the open source licenses - we might need to consolidate that overview/description into one place, probably towards the beginning.

Picking a paper formatting we all follow is important - I'm happy with any format.

I think we should just format the combined paper and then ask everyone to do their edits in that format

From: Patrick Haluptzok Sent: Sat 04/12/2004 11:20 To: James Welle Cc: remegraw@u.washington.edu; mtatum@oaklandnet.com; Song Xue; Bipin Karunakaran; Patrick Haluptzok Subject: RE: CSEP 590TU Project Draft


James - That rough draft looks great - thanks for sending this in.

Would folks at MSFT main campus area be available Monday for lunch to talk through this paper? I think it would be worthwhile, on or off campus is fine.

Here are 2 integrating suggestions I have:

  1. 1 - Section 2 (my section) needs to get moved back by one chapter. Logically I should be after the current section 3 which describes the different source code licenses, because what I recommend doing presumes the reader already understands the license issue pretty much.
  1. 2 - Also part of my chapter (updated below) should be cut-paste into Section 1, probably as section 1.0 as an introduction to proprietary software - so that section 1.1 "Open Source Defined" shows the difference - because a number of folks I work with from non-technical (marketing,design,etc) backgrounds don't really know some of the basic software concepts and would get lost off the bat without the intro defining basic concepts.


1.0 Proprietary Source Defined

Software consists of the source code and its corresponding binary executable. Source code is a set of instructions that tell a computer what to do. The source code is an easily readable format that specifies how the computer is to respond to user input, how to process data to achieve the intent of the user, and how to present and store the results of computation. Source code is what software engineers write and modify, the naming conventions and comments in the source code explain what the program does. Source code by itself usually can’t be run on a computer directly. Source code is converted by means of a compiler into a binary executable which can be run on a computer. The binary executable is a more efficient form of the instructions for the computer to execute, and binary executables are very difficult to impossible for humans to read. The exact original source code can’t be derived from the binary executable, and attempting to convert the binary executable into source code is illegal under most software license agreements.

The binary executable is what a customer traditionally buys when purchasing proprietary source software. The source code is kept private and usually only released under extremely restrictive non-compete and non-redistributable licensing agreements. Further details on the business motivations and practices of proprietary software companies are discussed in Chapter 3.

1.1 Open Source Defined

Section 5:

Title: Case Study: Should Microsoft Open Source its Windows Operating System?
Author: James Welle JamesWelle

    History

         Microsoft's public attacks on open source
         Shared Source Initiative
         Windows Installer Xml (WiX)

    Other Open Source Operating Systems & Platforms

         Linux/Unix
         Apple OS X
         Sun Open Solaris
         Microsoft's Rotor
         Symbian

    Issues with Open Source Windows

         How much and what pieces of the OS should be open source?
              Near the public APIs, just the upper layers?
         What would the license look like?
              read-only, can compile, no selling, no rebranding, OEM
         Revenue
              business vs. personal customers, OEMs
         Piracy
         Security
         Copy Cats
              could code analysis tools prevent this, what about a closed- 
              source copycat?
         Product Support
         ISVs and the Developer Ecosystem
         Public Perception
              acceptance by the tech elite, open source converts, bug and 
              process transparency

Project Links

Seattle PI article from June 2004 on Microsoft and Open Source: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/179256_msftopen25.html

eWeek Article from October 2004 on Sun making Solaris Open Source: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1699436,00.asp

Steve Ballmer's Customer Email on Linux from October 2004: http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/execmail/

Information Week's Response to Ballmer's Email: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=51201701&tid=5999


LICENSING RELATED

LEGAL ASPECTS OF OPEN SOURCE LICENSING http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/campa/teaching/oss/papers/jarvinen.pdf

DE-BUGGING OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE LICENSING (Gomulkiewicz) http://www.law.washington.edu/Faculty/Gomulkiewicz/Publications/debugOpenSource.pdf

Open Source Software Licensing http://www.stromian.com/Open_Source_Licensing.htm

OSI Licensing http://www.opensource.org/licenses/

Introduction and Alternatives Related
Novell Open source
http://developer.novell.com/ndk/qstart/opensource.htm
Open source definition
http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php
Open source history
http://www.openknowledge.org/writing/open-source/scb/brief-open-source-history.html

Join the project

--Lin Huang: I got Professor Ed's mail tonight, askming me to decide whether I join the UCSD open soruce team or new MS open source team.

Let me know your thoughts, I prefer MS team. I read some article tonights, and would study the government and start up company who choose to use Open Source: understand the why, and come up the strategy and suggestion what we can improve our service.

I can be either team, but my focuse will basically alone this line. Let me know.

Thanks Lin

--User:MTATUM Goodafternoon,
-- Everything looks great! I added my section to our page. James-We should talk more, for our legal points won't repeat themselves. Chow-see(lol)every in class!

Warmest Regards Magdalene Tatum 4 NOV 2004 2:54pm


--James Welle: I would prefer to keep the group size to 5 or 6. There are two other open source projects, one of which has four members and another which has one member. Lin's topic already seems to be covered in our paper and Magdalene's is more about a specific legal case. Could you two contact the other open source teams and see if it would be a better fit for you to join them? If not, we can try to work something out for one of you, but I think we should keep 6 as a hard limit on our group size.

--Lin Huang:

Your existing project flow is very good! One thing I would like to point out though is that: your topic is based on whether VP or a commercial company should decide whether go to open source or not after reading the paper. My point as listed in previous thread, and based on analysis of the two and come up an alternative suggestion: so the topic emphasize on the alternative to the open source or commercial software. I am not sure whether this fit to your overal discussion and project goal. If not, let me know, I will join other team.

Since my general goal is on this, I have a chapter on a start up company, which model they will choose to go? and a case study on a company choose to use the open source and what lesson they have learned?

Let me know your thoughts. Thanks Lin

--Bipk 15:47, 30 Oct 2004 (PDT) Hello Magdalene and LinHuang I dont have a problem with you guys joining in, We are already 5 of us and the max we can have is 6.I think we can easily accomdate one more person. I am not sure of a 7th person, if Ed agrees to it, that probably could be done too. Right now all of 5 of us have agreed on their ownership areas and will get an introduction ready by start of class on thursday. I have posted a JPG on the ownership areas on this site. Magdalene: Your area looks a chapter towards the end of the paper, what do you guys think? LinHuang: YOur topic is already taken and there are two of us working on this but with different perspectives one with an economic perspective and one in a general perspective.You will have to find a different topic at the earliest if you need to join, probably a mail to ed would also help. James, song, rodrick,Patrick please chime in as needed to bring this to closure. Thanks



_____________________________________ Hi Bipin, James, Song, & Rodrick, October 29, 2004

My name is Magdalene Tatum (UCB) and I am very interested in "Open Source" especially the dual licensing component and all of the new legal positions. The most interesting element is what we learned in lecture last night about SCO and their lawsuit with IBM for the UNIX code. I am ready to dive in to whatever avenue we decide to go!!!!!


Lin Huang:

Guess I am not familiar with the area should go. Sorry for the late post here. I have signed up for this project as well a week ago. Just went browsing around, and located this page.

I would like to write a sub topic about: what's the middle ground?

Specifically, would analyse the pros and cons of open source vs commecial software , and see whether there is a better middle ground can be achieved. 1.Specifically toward the two cons I see from the open source: Two styles of the license: one can make into incompatible platform or applications; another has the limitation on the insentive for the innovation. 2. I would like to see "viewable source", that's different than the license of open source definition. this might very well overlap James, Song's license sub-topic.

Lin


P.S. Who will write the one page for the project? Maybe each of us should write a note about the sub-topic he/she is interested in to be more clear?

Choosing our Project

--Magdalene 8 Nov 2004, Everything looks good for our first draft submission. I streamlined my sub-section for it would not be so unclear and for it could flow with the other sections more smoothly. Thanks Rodrick for your remarks. I modified my section to include commercial software, and any grammatical errors.James: you mention in your section your going to speak upon " legal issues in order to attempt to come up with a viable open source model" My section is going to be a complete overview of all the "LEGAL ISSUES" dealing with open source, free open source, and commercial software companies. Your welcome to state whatever your prefer in your section. I just wanted you to be clear that I hope our sections do not have the same info. But, I guess when the final modification occurs, than any duplications will be deleted. I was just trying to be helpful from the first draft stage of our subsections. Also Patrick: My section will also have similarities with this remark in your subsection "We will analyze some of the corporate practices used to protect proprietary code and some of the lawsuits challenging the validity of free open source". But as I stated to James we will focus on any duplications in the final draft change stage. Enjoy the rest of your week!



--PatrickH 4 Nov 2004, I think it flows better if my section 2 is moved to section 3 - and section 3 is moved to section 2. Section 3 describes the different source code licenses, and that explanation should go first because how a software company protects itself depends on those definitions.

--Remegraw 18:41, 3 Nov 2004 (PST) Hey guys, I am also able to meet a half hour before class. I'll plan to have my paragraph up by tonight. Without date stamps it is hard to follow the threads here. Are you guys currently thinking that our overall project and sub-project goals as stated are still too broad? Perhaps we can see what everyone has for a paragraph tomorrow night and see how it looks. Hopefull only small tweeks are needed to make it coherent.

--Bipk 15:34, 30 Oct 2004 (PDT) The introduction is due with each person writing a paragraph about his own topic and we will integrate on the night before class on 11/04/2004. It will be helpful to get this on the 4th so that we can do some edits and fine tune it if it doesnt fit that well over the weekend before the 8th. I dont think it is a lot of work to get apargraph about your topic before thursday:)


Song: Sounds good. I vote half an hour before class.

James Welle: I still think we need to choose a very precise topic and subtopics if the pieces of our paper are going to fit together well. The goals we have listed now seem too general. What do you guys think of getting together before or after class to nail it down?

bip: I kinda tried to highlight our project goals including what you already said if you think it is not appropriate or we are not there yet we can go further into discussion on what we need to write on subtopics. I think i highlited 4 subtopics which could be important from the project perspective. Feel free to update post if i missed something. Song:

The topic is fine with me. A survey on the current landscape of commercial companies vs. open source is great. Open source Windows would be a great example of illustration, though we probably concentrate on issues in general. Regarding the viability of commercial software in the future, can 4 of us agree on an answer?:)

Anyway, the following are a few other bullet points I can think of. Some are probably worthy of a subtopic. Others are relatively minor by worth pointing out.

  • Trustworthy computing. This has been one of the main arguments of open source community. Commercial company needs to respond to this in a convincing fashion (both to enterprise & to consumer) to order to compete effectively with open source.
  • “Share source” as an answer to “Open source”? A comparison of various licenses. How can commercial companies compete by amending the licensing agreement targeted at different audience, corporate, developer and consumer.

Total cost of ownership. Hidden cost, upfront fee vs. service contract.

The quality and responsiveness of product support. Customer community.


bipk: Paste the discussion we had on the email and continue with that discussion and go further

Original Message----- 

From: James Welle
Sent: Saturday, October 23, 2004 6:29 PM
To: 'Rodrick Megraw'; Song Xue; Bipin Karunakaran
Subject: RE: [CSE P 590TU] Project topics

I created the main page for our project:

http://cubist.cs.washington.edu/CSEP590TU-wiki/index.php/Project_Teams

Can you guys enter your user information under the heading for our project?

jw

Original Message----- 

From: James Welle
Sent: Saturday, October 23, 2004 6:29 PM
To: 'Rodrick Megraw'; Song Xue; Bipin Karunakaran
Subject: RE: [CSE P 590TU] Project topics


OK, I like Rod's idea of generalizing it to not just focus on Microsoft. Here are some possible subtopics. What are some other subtopics that fall under that major topic that you guys would like to explore?


Major Topic:

How should a commercial software company react to the open source phenomenon?

Subtopics:

1. How have commercial software companies utilized open source? What has been successful and unsuccessful? I think this would be a survey of existing software companies and how they are using or not using the open source model.

2. Should Microsoft open source Windows?

3. An analysis of current business trends and predictions for the future. We could try to predict whether or not a commercial company will be able to survive in the future without using open source.

jw

Original Message----- 

From: Rodrick Megraw [1] 
Sent: Saturday, October 23, 2004 4:48 PM
To: Song Xue
Cc: Bipin Karunakaran; James Welle
Subject: RE: [CSE P 590TU] Project topics

I'm not personally interested in doing something specifically about Windows, but I can understand if you guys are. I'd be more in favor of answering "How should a proprietary software company react to the open source phenomanon?" or similar. 

	Rod

_____________________________________ Explore, enjoy and protect the planet http://sierraclub.org

On Sat, 23 Oct 2004, Song Xue wrote: 

Sorry I didn't chime in earlier.  Our team had a ZBB push. I would list 
"open source" as my first choice and "outsourcing" my
second.  I agree we should write at a more granular level than the topic 
itself.  Regarding business vs. technology, I think all topics contain, at 
some levels, both ingredients and it is very difficult to use it to 
qualify the scope of topics.  I like the Windows open source topic that 
James listed earlier.  We can even expand it a bit.  Say "What should be 
the Microsoft strategy on open source" with additional subtopics like:
  Open source Windows?
  Public attitude towards open source
  What to do about Linux?
  How to adjust business/pricing model in view of open source?
  Developing linux software?
...
The topics are reasonably independent.  At the same time, there is a central  
theme that runs through all of them.  I like this format because it maintains  
the overall coherency yet allow people to work on different sections.


Original Message----- 

From: Rodrick Megraw [2]
Sent: Fri 10/22/2004 4:15 PM
To: Bipin Karunakaran
Cc: James Welle; Song Xue
Subject: RE: [CSE P 590TU] Project topics



I think the more cohesion the better, but this shouldn't come at the
expense of everyone ending up with topics that they are happy with.

At the top level, open source issues seem to fall into one of two areas:
business or technical. Business being stuff like licensing, workforce
issues, strategy, etc. Technical being quality, innovation, security, etc.
Does anyone else agree that we should break the topic down into at least
one of these halves for our papers?

I'm not sure this is a perfect idea, since there can be a lot of
interesting crossover between the two. Just a stab at getting closer to a
topic that will have the level focus we'd like.

       Rod




_____________________________________
Explore, enjoy and protect the planet
http://sierraclub.org

On Fri, 22 Oct 2004, Bipin Karunakaran wrote:

Sorry, I missed that, I thought the idea was to pick a  broad topic
discuss pros and cons and  kinda follow it on. Like open source and
Microsoft could be a last part of open source discussion. I agree that
there could be some disconnects between each topic, I am not sure if it
is acceptable or not, will let Rod and song also chime in.
Bipin


Original Message----- 

From: James Welle
Sent: Friday, October 22, 2004 3:39 PM
To: Bipin Karunakaran; Rodrick Megraw; Song Xue
Subject: RE: [CSE P 590TU] Project topics

I don't think we should even choose a topic as broad as "open source" as
our subject. We need to start with something much smaller and go from
there. If we choose such a broad topic, our paper is going to be very
disjointed.

If you look at the open source page on the Wiki, the instructors listed
some possible topics on the subject.

      What Motivates OS Workers (Interviews).
      How Good is Apache? (Source Code Review)
      Domesticating Open Source (MS Shared Source Code Initiative).
      where do we draw the line(How much should be open and how much
closed        e.g security code open or closed?)
      Can open source create good user interfaces?

I think each one of these is the type of granularity to choose for our
entire paper. Once we have chosen a topic like that, we can break it
down even further and assign work.

What do you guys think, Song and Rodrick?

jw

Original Message----- 

From: Bipin Karunakaran
Sent: Friday, October 22, 2004 3:32 PM
To: James Welle; Rodrick Megraw; Song Xue
Subject: RE: [CSE P 590TU] Project topics

What I was meaning to say is, lets settle on a topic and delve deeper
into it so that each guy picks up his part and does research on it and
gets back on what subtopic is more interesting to him.
By not making that choice we will each be thinking about different
topics and wont converge into one main topic(like whether outsourcing or
weblogs o open source).
But you bring an important discussion about Microsoft, which possibly is
a good subtopic of discussion under the main open source umbrella.
So if everyone agrees we need to choose the wide topic of open source,
each person can investigate some subtopic(s) and bring it back to the
thread so that everything fits and reads like chapters  of a book that
was intention in making that comment.

Original Message----- 

From: James Welle
Sent: Friday, October 22, 2004 3:25 PM
To: Bipin Karunakaran; Rodrick Megraw; Song Xue
Subject: RE: [CSE P 590TU] Project topics

Bipin, if we do open source, what specific top on open source would you
like to cover? I think that just choosing open source is way too broad.
Also, how do you feel open source could affect outsourcing?

What do you guys think of the Microsoft open source idea? To me, it is
not clear what all the advantages and disadvantages of Microsoft open
sourcing Windows are. Would it really increase piracy? I would say no
since the vast majority of personal users get Windows from an OEM and
the OEM is not going to pirate Windows. Businesses would most likely not
pirate Windows as well. Also, open source doesn't necessarily have to be
free, does it? Are there currently any licenses where the source code is
open, but in order to compile it or run the software you are required to
pay? Could Microsoft create such a license? (I guess they must be able
to, because some governments and universities have the source code and
I'm sure they aren't getting Windows for free.) I know people talk about
free as in freedom and free as in beer with respect to open source, but
I don't know if open source software HAS to be free as in beer.

jw

Original Message----- 

From: Bipin Karunakaran
Sent: Friday, October 22, 2004 3:10 PM
To: James Welle; Rodrick Megraw; Song Xue
Subject: RE: [CSE P 590TU] Project topics

To add a spin to open source
Would open source encourage outsourcing or not(now that everyone knows
how the good guys think)
And to outsourcing
Does outsourcing help US employees
You want someone offshore to work on a program using .NET yeah he needs
to buy Visual studio .net adding to the network and pushing improvements
and research which possibly is done here in the US.

Now what is the consensus on the topic of interest
I am open to any one. I would prefer Open source that makes it 1 vote
for open source. Whichever one wins is the topic and I think at least we
should agree on that today or by tomorrow.
What do you guys say?


Original Message----- 

From: James Welle
Sent: Friday, October 22, 2004 2:45 PM
To: Bipin Karunakaran; Rodrick Megraw; Song Xue
Subject: RE: [CSE P 590TU] Project topics

I agree with Bipin that we should first decide what question we are
going to try to answer or what problem we are going to try to solve.
Here some ideas I have come up with so far:

***************************************
Open Source
***************************************

      Should Microsoft open source Windows? How would this affect
piracy, security, and the perception of the company?

      Would an open source e-voting system be a viable replacement for
the current proprietary systems?

***************************************
Outsourcing
***************************************

      How is IT outsourcing similar to or different from the movement
of auto industry jobs overseas?

      Is it possible and is it a good idea for the US government to
try to stop or slow outsourcing?

      Can individuals in the IT industry do anything about
outsourcing? How do unions relate to this?

      What can we expect the overall effect of outsourcing to be on
the industry in 5, 10, 20 years?

****************************************
Weblogs
****************************************

      Can and/or will weblogs have an effect on the way political
candidates run campaigns?

      Could a candidate use a weblog as an effective communication
device?

      Will weblogs change the way media covers politics?

      Are weblogs a viable replacement for more traditional news
sources on political subjects?

jw

Original Message----- 

From: Bipin Karunakaran
Sent: Friday, October 22, 2004 2:29 PM
To: Rodrick Megraw; Song Xue
Cc: James Welle
Subject: RE: [CSE P 590TU] Project topics

First all let me go to the core of the topic does everyone agree that
our project is a paper on open source?


Original Message----- 

From: Rodrick Megraw [3]
Sent: Friday, October 22, 2004 1:33 PM
To: Song Xue
Cc: James Welle; Bipin Karunakaran
Subject: Re: [CSE P 590TU] Project topics

Some potential sub-topics:

-Comparison of various licensing models
-Innovation in open source software
-Comparison of various collaberation models
-Motivations for developers



      Rod

_____________________________________
Explore, enjoy and protect the planet
http://sierraclub.org

On Thu, 21 Oct 2004, Song Xue wrote:

Hi all,

My name is Song Xue.  I work for Microsoft.  It great to have the
opportunity to work with you.  Let's start the thread to discuss the
potential topics for our project.

_____________________________________

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