---
title: Open Source Business Practices
osem_url: https://osem.seagl.org/conferences/seagl2021/program/proposals/819
beginning: '2021-11-06T14:00:00.000-07:00'
end: '2021-11-06T14:30:00.000-07:00'
resources:
  internet_archive_identifier: SeaGL2021-Jim_Hall-Open_Source_Business_Practices
presenters:
- name: Jim Hall
  affiliation: The FreeDOS Project
  osem_url: https://osem.seagl.org/users/751
  gravatar_id: 6806d30d722e44cb76a923ac27152047
  biography: |-
    Jim Hall is an open source software developer and advocate. His first contribution to open source was in 1993, with a patch to GNU Emacs. Since then, Jim has authored, contributed to, or maintained dozens of open source projects.

    In addition to writing open source software, Jim also works with usability testing in open source software.

    Major projects include: FreeDOS and GNOME
---

The Open Source Initiative partnered with Brandeis University to deliver a series of micro courses about open source software. This Open Source Technology Management program includes several sub-topics. In early 2021, Jim taught the micro courses about Open Source Business Practices and how to Establish an Open Source Program Office.

This talk will share highlights from Open Source Business practices, including how organizations can use open source to run their business, pros and cons of licenses, and engaging with the community.

For example, a business might include open source software as part of their overall stack, such as in a Cloud offering. Or a business might include code licensed under a permissive license like BSD, to build a proprietary product. Or a business might release a proprietary product as open source software. Or they might use open source in some other way. This micro course helped people understand the issues in using or adopting open source, and how to do it right. (A key point in the course was "If you use open source to run your business, you should *invest* in that open source software." Don't just take; you need to contribute back.
