On Openness in Service Stacks
Peter Baumann · 2024
Openness has become a widely requested property, mostly of data and software. Generally, being "open" is seen as advantageous; sometimes a demand is stated that all software and data should be free, in other words: non-open (or less open) data and software should not even exist. On the other hand, neither all data, nor all soft-ware is openly available today. Vendors and research cent-ers often regulate data access, and software users still often-times decide to invest into licenses of proprietary software – obviously, with a reasons for doing so.In this contribution, based on a strong own involvement in and experience with the open-source community, we pro-vide a balanced analysis of open data and software and add-itionally consider the role of open standards. Ultimately, it turns out that open data and software models constitute part-icular business models with particular properties to be con-sidered before deciding about a specific model. Further, we motivate that there is a variety of possible business models which all can coexist in the market. As such, this paper can serve for clarification in an often heated, sometimes emot-ional discussion, contributing to more fact-based choices.