LitReview: Value of Open Hardware

Who?

• Joshua M. Pearce

What?

Quantifying the Value of Open Source Hardware Development

Where?

http://bizlegfoss-ritigm.rhcloud.com/static/books/ME_2015011215185288-Value-OSHW.pdf

When?

2015, 6, 1-11

Le Gist

Basically, this was an article literally attempting to give an equation and case study on how to calculate how valuable an open source hardware project is.  This is done mainly in terms of money.  The article is relevant due to modern ability to reproduce hardware especially through means like 3D printing.

The Good

1. Super
2. 4 Ways to Win was extremely helpful information.  Great to learn the major types of business models for profiting off FOSS.
3. I really like the point that FOSS allows businesses to directly interact with customers.  I hadn't thought of this before, but I think it is extremely powerful given how many companies constantly talk about wanting to be close to the customer, and how much companies stress their relationship and trust with customers.

The Bad

1. Some reiteration on reasons why FOSS is great.  I have heard the bulk of the reasoning behind these benefits over and over again.  I would have saved myself some time by just reading the business model specific stuff.
2. Only gives 4 business models, although does offer a link for further investigation.  Would have liked some lists of examples, especially considering fellow students complaints at some of the dated examples(*cough*Netscape*cough*)
3. GPL guide section 12.1 talks about how the GPL does not restrict, but promotes free usage of software under the license, but does not explain how one would control that usage.

Questions

1. What business model currently is the safest for developers like myself?  Would I fall under that startup category?
2. Is there a way to regulate usage of software, but still keep it open source?  Is it possible to put source code up for people to see, but not let them use it?  Is this still Open Source Software?
3. I've heard time and time again the benefits of making software Open Source, to the point that I feel like I can only argue towards everything being open source.  What are some examples of when closed source would be the way to go?

Review

This was a great quick read.  I'm happy to start transitioning from the legal side to the business side of Business/Legal Aspects of FOSS class, and think this was a great jumping off point.  Having said that, I would have liked a less biased, more informative, more up to date version.

7/10

Weekly 8

Spring Break - I went home where my family and I did some snowboarding, and I tried to stay away from any schoolwork :)

Weekly 7

Had to write an essay for my German Film class this week.  That was kind of a bummer.  The assignment was to analyze any of the films we watched in class based on what genre the movie was.  So for example, I chose to write about how the film La Habanera was an Escapist Melodrama.  I chose this movie because I thought it was interesting that these types of films were prominent during WWII in Germany.  I initially believed the market to overwhelmingly be made up of propaganda films, but the motivation was really to distract the viewers from the terrors of the war.

In Japanese Film class, we wrapped up Seven Samurai and discussed it in class.  I thoroughly enjoyed this film because it was action packed and had a very diverse range of characters, who were all very cool in their own way.  A lot of other students like the film as well and it averaged about an 8.5 from the class reviews.  We also started doing an in depth look at Confucianism and the different major relationships involved in traditional Confucian beliefs.  Next, we are supposed to watch a film about the 47 Ronin, who were samurai whose master was wrongfully sentenced to commit suicide.  The 47 Ronin then infamously seeked vengeance for their master's death.

In my Business and Legal Foss class we went to RocPy!  You can read about this meetup in my other blog post!  Basically, RocPy is always fun and productive and you should attend if you can.

In other news, still hammering through the classical Era for Music class.  This week was kind of a wind down before spring break.

Profile1

Check out my Software Freedom Conservancy profile here: https://docs.google.com/a/g.rit.edu/document/d/1c_xVONX7ISMkBR8y2e3Pud9tZVy33LwtsfEX3F2eNWU/edit?usp=sharing

TeamProp2

List your other team members below

• Will Paul - dropofwill (whp3652@rit.edu)
• Kocsen Chung - kocsen (kxc4519@rit.edu)

Which Entity did your team choose to profile?

CoinBase

Description of the Organization

Coinbase is a private corporation that aims to provide a safe and reliable bitcoin wallet for users, as well as handle bitcoin transactions between users.

Describe each team member's role

We ended up dividing the project as such:  Myself - service overview, Will - Organizational details, Kocsen - community architecture

Organization/Project Source Code Repo URL

• github.com/coinbase - toshi is there big project, everything else is wrappers for support

Upstream Mentors and Communication

• IRC: #coinbase
• Twitter: @coinbase

What do you anticipate the easy parts will be?

Lots of information on them on the internet, and it's not hard to sift through.  Pretty up to date company which is good.

What do you anticipate the hard parts will be?

Organization is private, so may be hard to find certain private information about them.

How will you overcome both?

Get together with our group and just start diving into the internet.

If something goes wrong, what contingencies do you have in place?

Google docs saves all changes and is unparalleled for simple collaboration.  We will revert back to older changes if something goes awry.  Alternatively, the information we are researching is readily available on the internet, so we can just find it again.

When will your group meet regularly outside of class time?

Much thanks to Kocsen for setting up this nifty meetup calendar: http://www.when2meet.com/?2782271-P9cG4

We usually meet 2 or 3pm on Wednesdays.

RocPy Meetup!

Roc.py meetup was awesome!  Bizlegfoss class met at the University of Rochester for a Python User Group meeting.  It's been so long since I last attended Roc.py that I completely forgot about the weird setup of the room we usually set up in.  All the seats are facing the back of the room because, as my friend explained, it helps the professors see what the students are doing on the computers.

Anyway, the vast bulk of the time was taken up by a really awesome open source Python web project called "toyz" by a U of R PhD student named Fred (fred3m - https://github.com/fred3m/toyz).  The project is extremely useful for reducing and displaying things like gigantic images.  The specific example that Fred gave was astronomy images which can be several gigabytes in size, but load extremely quickly through toyz.  Fred said he made the program to help with his PhD and because he wanted to know he made something cool and worthwhile.  The program was "initially created as a way to view and interact with FITS images stored on a remote server as well as perform data reduction", and it is meant "to meet the needs of 'Big Data' scientists".

Personally, I thought this program was awesome, and was especially intrigued to find that Fred has put the project on Github and would encourage people to check it out.  His demo of the application framework was super cool, as he proved that it could load giant space images in mere seconds, which could then be zoomed in on for higher quality.  The user interface was also very legitimate and professional looking, along with some really cool graph display abilities.

Fred said he wanted to bring attention to the idea that this type of technology needs to be updated and made more accessible, and it was really cool to see that he was trying to do something about that.  After the toyz talk, there was still a bit of time left so anyone was allowed to give a lightning talk.  One of my fellow bizlegfoss students AJ(ajman1101 - github.com/ajman1101) gave an awesome talk about how all of the elements of multiplayer games have already been defined.  This was an extremely interesting topic for me being a Game Designer and Developer myself, and it was fun trying to categorize games that people have played into the categories that AJ gave.  Overall, a fun filled Roc.py!

LitReview: Market Power and Regulation

Who?

• Jean Tirole

What?

Nobel Prize winning article on Market power and regulation

Where?

http://bizlegfoss-ritigm.rhcloud.com/static/books/nobel-popular-economicsciences2014.pdf

When?

2014

The Gist

A cropped version and summation of the Nobel Prize award winning article about how regulation applies to different markets.  It also explains some interesting tools and strategies for regulation and competition in markets.

The Good

1. Very quick read for an award winning article
2. Talks about oligopolies and monopolies, which I find very interesting 
3. The thing won a Nobel Prize - doesn't get much better than that!

The Bad

1. Could see this being completely boring for those not interested in business.
2. Lots of different cases to think about
3. Would like to read the actual prize winning piece

The Questions:

1. What other cases exist worth mentioning?
2. Are patents good or bad in this sense?
3. What is the most broadly applicable way to regulate markets

My Review

This was an interesting read, and it was really cool to get to know about something that won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for 2014.  This was a very recent article although I would still like to know how it holds up in this immediate time.

7/10