Future of the Creation of Software

.The group that selects this topic as thiers please put your name and composition here!
.Then place your 20 research questions
.Then divide the questions amoungst the group and answer them in this page! (to be done for next week Thursday - 4 May)

GROUP COMPOSITION

We are the MBA students from the Amsterdam Business School UvA. Our Group comprises of:

1. Chikako Okada
2. Shubhra Deshmukh
3. Sonja Srubar
4. Yin-Chen Hsu

INTRODUCTION

Two models of software creation are locked in a battle to the end. Will most software be created as proprietary systems or created as open source in all it hybrid forms. Can 25 000 best in class developers in Redmond produce a superior operating system in contrast to a million registered Linux amateur developers? At the heart of the debate are conceptions of ownership, creativity, professionalism, and the consumer economy. Will software patents make a comeback, as a possible limitation of open source in the future? Is there a third way, with open standards such as used in MPEG4 and by SAP?

UNCERTAINTIES

The software creation is plagued with different uncertainities. These can be grouped into following:

1. Technological Uncertainities
2. Impact of Industry
3. Impact of Government
4. Impact of Economic conditions

These are elaborated in next section.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Technological Uncertainities

• What is open source software?
• Is the open source easier to develop than closed source?
• Who would be responsible for maintenance, quality and reliability control?
• Can software created on open-source OS be copy righted?
• Won’t adoption of open source software stifle innovation of software?
• How does open standards used in MPEG4 and SAP work? Does this mean part of these software is changeable/copyrighted while is part is not?
• Does system thinking work in open source development?
• Security issues in open source

Impact of Industry

• What role does industry play?
• Who are the major players supporting open source and proprietary software?
• Mixing of the open and closed source - effect on industry as whole, why firms want to do it?
• Future of coexistence of Linux and Windows
• What is the history of patents/copyrights in the software industry?
• How does open source work in line (or violates) intellectual property rights?
• Who sets the policy (regulations) that manages creation of software?
• Problems of monopoly in case of closed source?

Impact of Government

• What role does government play in this debate?
• What are the differences in regulations in different countries?
• Which type of software creation will it support?

Economic implications

• What are the economic benefits and detriments of developing open source system?
• Who is going to pay for software development if open source becomes the norm?
• How does society influence creation of software?