Interview with Krzysztof Daniel
Is the Open door closing?. Past 15 years review and a glimpse into the future.
Krzysztof Daniel will give a talk about Is the Open door closing?. Past 15 years review and a glimpse into the future. at FOSDEM 2020.
Q: Could you briefly introduce yourself?
My name is Krzysztof, but people who can’t pronounce that call me Chris. I am a researcher & advisor at the Leading Edge Forum, and I help corporations to clarify what they want and, what is a little bit more difficult, what they can do.
Q: What will your talk be about, exactly? Why this topic?
In my day job, I often advise my customers whether to use or not to use open approaches, and I study how market changes affect them. Almost a decade ago, I was a Red Hat software developer listening to presentations in awe, so this time, I wanted to contribute something back, so I decided to check how the Open world is changing. I had no idea what I could find, just a blurry opinion about threats brought by cloud companies and far east. I did not have to do all of this by myself, as there was already a research paper written by Simon Wardley about strategic use of Open Source in 2012 (and also presented at FOSDEM), so I just took it, explored what flavours of Open do we have, and where have we seen successes and failures.
Q: What do you hope to accomplish by giving this talk? What do you expect?
Many people are very enthusiastic about Open Source, which creates a sort of hype. On the other hand, many corporations do not know how to use Open and how to analyse risks in this space. For me, it is a reality check. It is spreading awareness about self-cantered consultants who advise mindless usage of Open without thinking whether it makes sense. I want to make people more aware of what Open Source can do for them, and what it can’t, because failing in this space is very expensive.
Q: During the last 20 years, we have seen an explosive growth of FOSS, but also a lot of failed open initiatives. What are some of the failures with the biggest lessons for us?
It’s not failures that are important, but successes.
Q: Have you enjoyed previous FOSDEM editions?
Last time, when I attended FOSDEM, I felt truly at home.
Creative Commons License
This interview is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Belgium License.