I've just returned from my second Open Source Think Tank hosted by Olliance and DLA Piper. The event is a very interactive discussion of a variety of open source topics. The participants are the leaders of commercial open source companies and open source projects, analysts, VC's, CIOs that have OSS in their enterprise, etc. It's got to be the most significant gathering of open source business experience and talent.

At the end of last year's Open Source Think Tank there was a recognition that the line between open source and proprietary companies would blur. In time software companies would have both proprietary and open source software elements and business models that matched. Even a year ago we speculated that there are probably few software companies that didn't use open source software at all.

This year there seems to be a resounding agreement that all of our "commercial open source software companies" are simply software companies. During one of the panel sessions a group of CIOs were asked "What would you like to tell the commercial open source companies in the room?" One CIO's answer was particularly representative:

"You're not OS vendors. You're software vendors that happen to be ahead of the pack. You're using the most effective development and distribution model. You have a competitive advantage in the communities and approach. I expect you to become the next generation of software vendors."

Much of the discussion here was about what we (those of us formerly known as commercial open source software companies) need to do to become more mainstream. Or, as one of the CIOs put it, move out of 'junior varsity status.' Some key discussion points and challenges we've identified and discussed are:

Ease of consumption. The consumers of our software and services need us to fit better into the mainstream expectations of software companies. We need to improve the total experience interacting with us a companies including downloading, installing, deploying, using, managing, supporting, and procuring.

Integration with other software in the ecosystem. There's a need for better integration in the current software ecosystem. Such as "certified" integration, testing, and support both vertically in the software stack (OS, DB, App server, etc.), and horizontally with other business applications that combine to solve real problems.

Licensing and IP. The complexity of open source intellectual property was a key concern discussed throughout the event. It's clear that there's at least a perceived risk factor associated with open source software IP that we need to address. One person made a comment that OS licenses are an issue because people actually read them, as opposed to proprietary licenses. While there are a lot of OS licenses, in reality proprietary licenses are almost all unique and far greater in number. The OS licensing and IP problem breaks down into partially an education problem, and partially a compatibility problem between reciprocal (like GPL) and non-reciprocal licenses (like BSD and Apache). In any case there's a perceived problem if not a real one and it is a barrier to adoption.

Business models and commercial engines. Many people speak of open source businesses, and open source business models. Most (if not all) of the people at this event agree that open source isn't a business model. That's just not the right way to think about it. Software companies do have to think about the impact open source software will have on our business models. Companies building businesses primarily from open source software have been inventing and re-inventing business models that deal with the unique intellectual property, development, and distribution models for ten years. There are some best practices today but one of the key challenges remains to create a commercial engine that appropriately adds value and benefits both the development/user community as well as the customer community.

I'll probably write more later as other thoughts about the conversations at the event begin to gel. Hats off to Andrew and Mark for bringing us all together. It continues to be a thought provoking event and a great opportunity to meet others facing similar challenges.