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Everything has a price, nothing is free

Some thoughts on the concept of value, for innovators: an example of reverse-thinking

Time ago I listened to a talk by Vito Mancuso, a famous Italian theologian, about “Io e Dio” (God and I). Quite an unusual topic for me. Nevertheless, I’ve extracted a reflection from it that, after some time, I wish to take up again here.

 EVERYTHING HAS  A PRICE, NOTHING IS FREE!

Roughly speaking, the explanation for this concept resides in human nature that, in comparison with other natural and biological species, can be depicted as an entity built on various layers (a classification approach similar to the one adopted in Information Technology). … Read the rest

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Radical Open Source – Economics

A long time ago I wrote my first post on Radical Openness.

I promised to post something more about the Economics lying behind the Radical Openness approach, even though it is  quite a challenge for me. As both an industrial IT manager and a representative of open source communities, when dealing with open source projects I’m on the borderline between looking for their prompt success – based also on  monetary returns to grant their sustainability – and maintaining a radical open approach.… Read the rest

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Open Source Strategies for the Enterprise

Last week, during my flight to Paris, I finally had the chance to read Simon Phipps’ book entitled  Open Source Strategies for the Enterprise.

Buy it. Great value at zero price!

I read it quite fast because I already knew its main contents: in fact, the book is a rational selection of Simon’s posts that you can find in the wild webmink blog. Nothing new to me, considering that I generally agree on many of Simon’s assertions.… Read the rest

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How to build an industrial open source policy – Let’s learn from France

France is one of the main adopters – or probably the larger adopter – of open source software at the public level.

Last week, at Open World Forum 2012, the French National Council for Open Source Software (CNNL)  presented  a list of 10 indications sent to Fleur Pellerin, French Ministry for SMEs, Innovation and Digital Economy.

I find this is a perfect synthesis of many suggestions that I heard from various sources during last years aiming to foster the adoption of free/open source software (FLOSS – i.e.:… Read the rest