Welcome to the Future of Open Source Forum
Sponsored by North Bridge Venture Partners
Well over a decade ago, in my operating career, Open Source presented itself as a solution to a critical development deadline for one of my engineering teams. I was inspired. Little did I know at the time how significant a moment that was.
Shortly thereafter, upon entering the world of Venture Capital, I was determined to support Open Source Software development by seeking out and investing in the best and brightest potential people behind it. And yet as I began that work, I quickly found a deep gulf between those who were driving the OSS movement and those attempting to learn from and work with it.
So I arranged “The Great Open Source Debate” to bring this into focus. See picture below of some of the OSS leaders of the the day, like Marten Mickos of MySQL, John Roberts of Sugar CRM, Kim Polese of Spikesource, Bob Gett of Optaros and Billy Marshall of rPath. They debated with 6 top CIOS on the future for Open Source adoption. It was a fun start and further encouraged us to create an enduring program.
So each year I've worked with Open Source leaders and pioneers like Mark Shuttleworth of Canonical, Dries Buytaert of Acquia / Drupal, John Lilly of Mozilla, Ron Hovsepian of Novell, Roger Burkhardt of Ingres as well as many others to look ahead to the future issues and opportunities for the industry. Guided by our annual survey, we've presented our views in the keynote session at OSBC. And now with this forum we're literally opening the thinking and discussion up to the community at large.
So 5 years later, North Bridge is once again proud to be sponsoring the annual Future of Open Source survey in conjunction with ComputerWorld, with more than 25 leading OSS industry collaborators. There have been thousands of participants and we welcome you to join us and take this year's survey here.
Last year we also encouraged a series of articles and blogs from our collaborators around their vision for the future of open source in whatever domain they represented. The response was so overwhelmingly positive, that this year, thanks to Acquia and Drupal Gardens, we’re proud to present this microsite to bring together this year’s thought leaders to present their latest perspectives. These are linked here.
We hope you’ll both enjoy, participate in, and hopefully shape with us at North Bridge, the Future of Open Source.
Please visit these sections of the Forum to join our discussion!
- About this Forum: This welcome message provides background to how and why we are here today!
- Surveys: The 2011 Future of Open Source Survey is now published and you can view the survey results and analysis found in Michael Skok’s keynote presentation at OSBC. You can also view past survey information in this section.
- Blog the Future: Important commentaries from the leaders in open source. This is where the industry wants to hear from you! If you would like to participate in this discussion – please contact us.
- Collaborators: These are the companies that are driving this industry and this site. You can apply to join our annual survey and thought leadership program and be recognized alongside these leading companies. Contact us for more information.
- Survey News & Analysis: Find out the industry buzz around our survey findings. Galleries: Enjoy the photos taken at OSBC and North Bridge events. Feedback: We want your feedback on how to keep this discussion relevant and energized. Please take mini-survey so that we can improve our program.
The Great Open Source Debate!
