(This event is co-located with the Open Source Summit, produced by the Linux Foundation)

Open source entrepreneurship consists of ways to build your business on open source principles and process. This means optimizing for open source collaboration, automation and communities. A practitioner of said principles would be an open source entreprenur.

As we learn more about the pervasiveness and ubiquity of open source code, we’re finding that “open source” means so much more than what license you use or the source code you utilize. Open source is now a term of art that includes the process of collaboration, process automation, and building on the work of external ecosystems. Every product manager, engineering manager, investor, CIO/CTO and, yes, entrepreneur needs to understand these concepts intuitively.

Agenda

9am: The Principles of Open Source Entrepreneurship, John Mark Walker, Founder OSEN

Open source entrepreneurship consists of ways to build your business on open source principles and process. This means optimizing for open source automation, collaboration, communities, and governance. These are proving to be the most important skill sets for business success in this century.

“Open source” means so much more than what license you publish software under or the source code you use. Open source is now a term of art that includes the process of collaboration, process automation, and building on the work of external ecosystems. Every product manager, engineering manager, investor, CIO/CTO and, yes, entrepreneur needs to understand these concepts intuitively. This talk will focus on the keys to open source entrepreneurship and how you can use them to transform your organization - and career.

John Mark Walker is an expert in open source ecosystems, communities and products. He created the Open Source Entrepreneur Network (OSEN), a resource for tech professionals who build products and services with open source software. He is also the author of the eBook “Building a Business on Open Source Software” published by the Linux Foundation.

John Mark has built his career exploring the links between open source communities and product development in stints at Red Hat, Dell EMC, Splunk, IDG, and SourceForge. He has been a regular speaker at tech conferences and has written extensively at opensource.com, linux.com and OSEN.

10am: How to successfully enter the FOSS emerging market, VM Brasseur, Technical Business and Open Source Strategy Consultant

Free and open source software (FOSS) is an emerging market for most of the corporate and business world. It's a new land, abundant in resources and promise, and businesses are getting very excited about the possibilities. It's also an entirely foreign culture, and many businesses are struggling to learn how to operate in this new land. With such potential, a growing number of businesses are looking to enter the FOSS emerging market, which is no surprise. This talk focuses on best practices for businesses entering this brave new world.

In VM (aka Vicky)'s has been an analyst, programmer, product manager, software engineering manager, director of software engineering, and C-level technical business and open source strategy consultant. Vicky is the winner of the Perl White Camel Award (2014) and the O'Reilly Open Source Award (2016).

Vicky occasionally blogs at http://anonymoushash.vmbrasseur.com and frequently tweets at @vmbrasseur.

11am Innovating in the open: Lessons from a 3 time founder of successful open source based businesses, Evan Powell, CEO, Cloudbyte

What are some lessons learned by an open entrepreneurship entrepreneur? After several companies, including three as founding CEO that eventually became successful and one that is growing quickly as a leading Kubernetes related storage solution, as well as others he supported as an advisor or investor, Evan has seen various patterns emerge. In this talk he shares some practical tips - how do you actually DO open entrepreneurship and how can one avoid common pitfalls?

Evan Powell is the CEO and Chairman of Cloudbyte. He has been founding CEO of three enterprise infrastructure software companies, Clarus Systems (RVBD), Nexenta Systems, and most recently StackStorm (BRCD). Currently Evan serves as an advisor and investor in a number of start-ups, including the emerging leader of intelligent object storage, Cloudian, as well as Keewi, TextIQ, Journey Software and others.

1pm There is no Open Source Business Model, Stephen Walli, Open Source and Tech Strategy Consultant

There are best practices to understand when building products from open source software, but there are a number of anti-patterns that crop up along the way. Product teams (from engineering to marketing) need to understand these patterns and practices to participate best in open source project communities and deliver products and services to their customers at the same time. These patterns hold regardless of whether the vendor created and owns the project or participates in projects outside their control.

Stephen Walli is an open source business consultant and long-time open source advocate at Microsoft, Outercurve, HPE, and Docker. Twitter: @stephenrwalli

2pm Effective Business Leadership using Open Source Software, Shane Coughlan, OpenChain Project Leader

This talk will explore the best practices for software asset management, licence compliance and governance in an open source context. It will explain why the Openchain industry standard was created, how it is applied to the market, and where it can help individual businesses gain a competitive edge.

Shane Coughlan leads the OpenChain community as Program Manager. His professional accomplishments include spearheading the licensing team that elevated Open Invention Network into the largest patent non-aggression community in history, establishing the leading professional network of Open Source legal experts and aligning stakeholders to launch both the first law journal and the first law book dedicated to Open Source.

3pm The World Bank GeoNode Study: 200% ROI on Open Source Community Participation, James Vasile, Partner at Open Tech Strategies

In a stunning report from the OpenDRI, an initiative sponsored by the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), and the World Bank published earlier this spring, researchers looked into whether it was possible to quantify the benefit of contributing to and participating in open source communities. They found the conservative estimate to be on the order of 200% ROI. This talk will be on how the team conducted the study, what they found, and its implications for the open source world.

James Vasile is a partner at Open Tech Strategies with fifteen years experience as a user, developer, advocate and advisor in the free and open source software world. James was the founding Director of the Open Internet Tools Project and a Senior Fellow at the Software Freedom Law Center

The most successful organizations will be the ones that optimize the above - learn why participating and collaborating can be the key to building out your business and product strategy.

Open Source Entrepreneur Network Symposium

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