Clare Dillon, an open source advocate, discusses collaborative open-source development at universities. Topics include challenges and benefits of academia-driven approaches, the rise of open research in universities, managing intellectual property, and fostering collaboration for sustainable industry progress.
Academic institutions are adopting open source practices to support research outputs and collaborations, emphasizing the importance of open research for reproducible science.
Establishing open source program offices in universities aims to overcome inconsistencies in open source practices within academia, providing guidance on licensing, maintenance, and community collaboration.
Deep dives
Importance of Open Source in the Academic World
Open source plays a significant role in academia, particularly in open research as a research output. Different from the corporate world, academic goals involve using open source in education and research tools, emphasizing the importance of open research for reproducible science. Academic institutions are increasingly adopting open source practices to support research outputs and collaborations.
Growing Trend of Open Source Program Offices in Universities
There is a rise in establishing open source program offices in universities to support open source activities more consistently. Funding from organizations like the Sloan Foundation has contributed to this trend globally, with universities creating offices to manage open source initiatives and ensure proper licensing and support for research outputs.
Challenges and Considerations in Academic Open Source Initiatives
Academic institutions face challenges in managing open source projects due to diverse goals and contexts across disciplines. Initiatives like open source program offices aim to overcome inconsistencies in open source practices within universities and provide guidance on licensing, maintenance, and community collaboration.
Collaboration Between Academic and Corporate Worlds in Open Source
Collaborations between academia and the corporate sector in open source projects offer opportunities for impactful research translation. Universities like Trinity have established open source program offices within technology transfer offices to support spin-offs and commercialization of research projects. Industry-academia partnerships enhance research impact and facilitate knowledge exchange within the open source ecosystem.
In this episode, host Karsten Hohage discusses open source and InnerSource at universities with our guest Clare Dillon. Clare explains how collaborative, community-driven approaches to open-source development at universities result in greater knowledge sharing, but also what the academia-specific challenges to open approaches are. This episode will help you gain insight into the evolving open source landscape in academia and how it differs from other parts of the OSS ecosystem.
Guest:
Clare Dillon
Clare Dillon is an open source and InnerSource advocate and is currently a researcher with University of Galway and Lero, the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Software. Alongside working with the emerging global community of academic OSPOs, Clare is a member of Lero’s OSPO team. From 2021-2023, Clare served as the inaugural Executive Director of InnerSource Commons, a global non-profit foundation supporting open collaboration methods in corporate software development. In 2021, Clare co-founded Open Ireland Network, a community for those interested in advancing open source at a national level in Ireland. Previously, Clare was a member of the Microsoft Ireland Leadership Team, heading up their Developer Evangelism Group and responsible for Microsoft Ireland’s Academic Outreach Programs for over 10 years. Clare is a qualified coach and frequently speaks on topics relating to open collaboration and the future of work.