Interaction between OSS and standardisation

only claimed by 15% of the larger organisations. Finally, more than a third of the small organisations claim parallel developments in standardisation and OSS, whereas this is claimed only by 15% of the larger organisations. Overall, standards development and OSS activities are much more interconnected for smaller organisations, which much more often transfer OSS as input into standardisation, whereas this transfer and even the parallel development is not so common for larger organisations. Obviously, small organisations contribute much more to the integration of OSS and standardisation than large organisations. Following the identification of the different types of interaction, the respondents have been asked for their assessment of the interaction between OSS and

standardisation on their efficiency and results. Starting with looking at the impacts on standardisation (Figure 4), we observe that the majority of the respondents expects a positive impact of this interconnection on standardisation. In particular, more than 70% of the respondents perceive a positive impact on the creation of specifications of technical solutions contributing to interoperability and only slightly less than 70% on the implementation of technical solutions. However, standardisation benefits less related to the ideation of new technical solutions, but also to their validation and eventually diffusion, because here only around 60% of the respondents expect positive impacts. Overall, less than 10% of the respondents expect negative impacts from the interaction on standardisation.

5 5 3 3 5 4 16 10 13 16 15 12 31 38 35 33 32 7 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Identification of possible technical solutions (ideation) Creation of specification of technical solutions (interoperability)

Implementation of technical solutions

Validation of technical solutions Fostering the diffusion of technical solutions

Other effects

Negative impact No impact Positive impact

FIGURE 4: IMPACT OF INTERCONNECTION OF OSS AND STANDARDISATION ON EFFICIENCY AND RESULTS OF STANDARDISATION.

The differentiation between small and large organisations reveals that the former are more likely to expect positive impacts on the identification of possible technical solutions, i.e. the ideation, and the creation of specifications of technical solutions, i.e. interoperability, whereas the latter see the advantages in particular in the implementation of technical solutions.

If we turn to the impacts of the interaction on OSS in figure 5, we observe even higher shares of respondents

perceiving positive impacts. Almost 80% expect positive impacts for the creation of specifications of technical solutions, in particular related to interoperability, and around 75% for the implementation of technical solutions. Whereas around 70% perceive positive impacts on OSS both for the identification of possible technical solutions and their diffusion, beneficial impulses for the validation of technical solutions are expected by less than 60% of the respondents. However, only around 5% perceive negative impacts.

The differentiation between small and large organisations reveals in contrast to the expected impacts on standardisation that the former are more likely to expect positive impacts on the validation and diffusion of technical solutions. Larger organisations see the advantages again in the implementation of technical solutions, but also in the identification of possible technical solutions in OSS.

Taking the latter insights of the interconnection on efficiency and results of OSS together with those on standardisation, it becomes obvious that smaller organisations perceive knowledge flows from OSS to standardisation as providing the latter with new ideas as inputs for technical solutions. Larger organisations see advantages for standardisation from OSS in the implementation of technical solutions. In contrast, smaller organisations experience positive impacts of standardisation on OSS on the validation and diffusion of technical solutions. Obviously, there exists a complementarity of effects, which is explained by the size of the organisations. However, it has to be mentioned that smaller organisations are also less involved in standardisation confirming previous studies.

Overall, the respondents do see that there is likely to be a positive impact for identifying, implementing, validating

and fostering technical solutions through the development and use of OSS outside of an SDO, and that its limited use and development for particular purposes in an SDO might be helpful in certain situations.

In particular, analysing the impacts on open source projects, which build on standards developments, should require a differentiation according to the following three situations. First, when standards exist before open source initiatives, they can help to guide open source initiatives to create their technical specifications, which might be a positive impact. Secondly, standards created at same time as the OSS negotiations around the new standards might slow down the open source community to create its technical specifications. In addition, there is a risk that technical specifications in OSS advance more quickly than standards specifications and as the standard catches up, it ‘forces’ re-engineering of OSS. Both impacts could be negative. Thirdly, standards are created after OSS. Then, the standards might impact the existing ecosystem in reducing the variety in OSS. On the one hand, this might be negative, if this reduces the dynamic and ‘creative’ nature of many OSS teams competing in the parallel exploration of the search space to develop a winning or elegant solution. On the other hand, it might be positive in stabilising the subject area (hence, foster investment) and ensuring a level playing

Negative impact No impact Positive impact 3 2 2 3 3 8 13 9 11 18 12 16 35 40 37 30 35 8 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Identification of possible technical solutions (ideation) Creation of specification of technical solutions (interoperability)

Implementation of technical solutions

Validation of technical solutions Fostering the diffusion of technical solutions

Other effects

field (hence promoting competition by allowing smaller players to have a chance). This positive impact is more likely, where interoperability is important. Especially

during the consolidation after an initial phase of rapid exploration of OSS solutions, the aspect of standards needs to be considered. 50 50 50 49 48 51 49 33 47 47 46 44 45 1 2 3 4 5 Apache License 2.0 MIT License GNU General Public License (GPL 2.0) GNU General Public License (GNU) 3.0 BSD License 2.0 (3-clause, New or Revised) License GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) 2.1 Simplified BSD License (BSD) GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) 3.0 Other licenses Eclipse Public License (EPL) Artistic License (Perl) MicrosoŒ Public License ISC License OpenAirInterface (OAI) SoŒware Alliance License Model

FIGURE 6: PARTICIPATION IN OSS ACTIVITIES WITH VARIOUS COPYRIGHT LICENCES (SCALE: 1 = “NEVER”; 2 = PARTICIPATION IN OSS ACTIVITIES WITH VARIOUS

COPYRIGHT LICENCES (SCALE: 1 = “NEVER”; 2 = “RARELY“; 3 = “SOMETIMES”; 4 = “OFTEN“; 5 = “ALWAYS”).

In general, participation in standardisation activities applying royalty free schemes is much more common compared to FRAND. In particular, less than 20% of the respondents never participate in standardisation activities which apply royalty free schemes, this share is more than double in case FRAND is implemented. Complementary, more than 50% do always or often participate when royalty free is implemented, but less than 40% when FRAND is realised. In particular, small organisations are almost never involved in activities under a FRAND scheme, whereas the size of organisations does not correlate with the popularity of royalty free.

Looking at the most common OSS licensing regimes among the respondents in figure 6 the Apache License 2.0, the MIT License and the GNU General Public License (GPL 2.0) are the top three followed by GNU General Public License (GNU) 3 and the BSD License 2.0.

In addition, we can observe discrepancies between larger and smaller organisations. The latter have much stronger preferences for both the GNU General Public License 3.0 and the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) 3.0, whereas the former are inclined to the MIT License and the various versions of the BSD Licenses.