Conference "OSS 2.0 : Leveraging the Open Source community for business"

I believe an Italian and European PostgreSQL community participation would
be interesting. If anyone of you is interested, please let me know. I have
posted this conference details to the ITPUG association members, but - given
that the conference is run in English - it is open to the world and European
community of PostgreSQL as well.

Please let me know.

Thanks,
Gabriele

****

CALL FOR PAPERS

OSS 2.0 : Leveraging the Open Source community for business

Workshop at OSS 2008 Conference, co-located with IFIP WCC 2008 Milan (Italy)

http://conferenze.dei.polimi.it/oss20

Deadline for submission: 21st June 2008
Notification of acceptance: 11th July 2008 Final submission due: 25th July
2008
Workshop: 10th September 2008

SCOPE:
------

Open Source software (OSS) is gaining momentum. The largest IT and software
companies all around the world are now investing in it: IBM has recently
released Eclipse under an OSS license, Sun Microsystems has acquired MySQL
and has released Solaris as OSS, Oracle has acquired BerkelyDB. At the same
time, more and more companies are building their business according to the
Open Source paradigm. Many OSS projects are currently run and maintained by
companies, even tough indirectly. For example, more than 90% of OpenOffice
code is developed by professional software engineers employed by a pool of
companies that include Sun, IBM, Novell, Red Flag, Red Hat, and Google. Most
of the code of MySQL is developed by MySQL's employees. Recent research has
shown that even among managed and active projects hosted on SourceForge more
than 40% of the code is contributed by paid developers.

Based on this empirical evidence, why should companies invest in OSS?

The focus of contributions should be on the ways in which business can be
built around OSS, with a particular attention to the role of communities.
Submissions are invited for theoretical and empirical research papers. The
official language of the workshop is English.

The workshop is open to all researchers and members of the OSS community.
The Organizing Committee will select the participants through a double blind
review process. At least one author of each accepted submission must attend
the workshop and all workshop participants must pay the workshop
registration fee.

TOPICS:
-------

The following represents a non exhaustive list of topics:

* OSS business models:
OSS strategies of software companies, sustainability of OSS-based business
models, hybridization between commercial and open software, impact of OSS on
firm performance.

* Companies in OSS projects:
Companies' involvement in OSS projects: contributions and strategies, role
of paid developers and social networks, impact of companies' involvement on
software quality.

* Communities:
Advantages of OSS communities for OSS-based business models, communities as
market platforms and source of feedback, managerial strategies for
leveraging OSS communities.

* Innovation models:
Open innovation framework, factors favouring the emergence of OSS-like
innovation patterns, innovation policies tailored to software design, OSS
technology transfer issues.

*OSS model and communities in other sectors:
Applicability of OSS-like models to other sectors (biotech, multimedia,
etc.), role played by communities in other sectors.

Authors should submit papers (in .sxw, .doc, .rtf, or .pdf format) to
Eugenio Capra (eugenio(dot)capra(at)polimi(dot)it).
Papers ahould be formatted in accordance with the main conference templates,
which can be found at:
http://oss2008.dti.unimi.it/index.php?id=authorKit.htm

WORKSHOP CO-CHAIRS:
----------------
Eugenio Capra, Politecnico di Milano (eugenio(dot)capra(at)polimi(dot)it) Chiara
Francalanci, Politecnico di Milano (francala(at)elet(dot)polimi(dot)it) Cristina Rossi
Lamastra, Politecnico di Milano (cristina1(dot)rossi(at)polimi(dot)it) Anthony I.
Wasserman, Carnegie Mellon West (tonyw(at)west(dot)cmu(dot)edu)

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE:
---------------------
Robert J. Alexander, Executive IT Architect, IBM Italia, IT Luciano Baresi,
Associate Professor, Politecnico di Milano, IT Lorenzo Benussi, Researcher,
TOPIX and Universita' di Torino, IT Francesco Bolici, Assistent Professor,
Universita' di Cassino, IT Andrea Bonaccorsi, Professor, Universita' di
Pisa, IT Andrea Capiluppi, Senior Lecturer, University of Lincoln, UK
Fabrizio Capobianco, CEO, Funambol, US Carlo Daffara, CEO, Conecta srl, IT
Jean Michel Dalle, Professor, Marie Curie University, FR Jean Carlos De
Martin, Professor, Politecnico di Torino, IT Dario Lorenzi, Ph.D. Student,
Politecnico di Milano, IT Joachim Henkel, Professor, Technische Universitat
Munchen, D James Howison, Ph.d. Student, Syracuse University, US Angelo
Raffaele Meo, Professor, Politecnico di Torino, IT Francesco Merlo, Ph.D.
Candidate, Politecnico di Milano, IT Mattia Monga, Assistant Professor,
Universita' di Milano, IT Vincenzo Morabito, Assistant Professor,
Universita' L. Bocconi, IT Alberto Onetti, Professor, Universita'
dell'Insubria, IT Gregorio Robles, Associate Professor, Universidad Rey Juan
Carlos, IT Francesco Rullani, Researcher, Copenaghen Business School, DK
Barbara Scozzi, Assistant Professor, Politecnico di Bari, IT Walt Scacchi,
Professor, University of California, Irvine, US Alberto Sillitti, Assistant
Professor, Libera Universita' di Bolzano, IT Salvatore Torrisi, Professor,
Universita' di Bologna, IT Georg von Krogh, Professor, ETH Zurich, CH