1. From innovative to commercial
open source edition
The building and management of communities in
public research
Patrick Moreau
23 /09/2011
Patrick.moreau@inria.fr

2. Inria in a nutshell
Inria, the French national institute of digital science is dedicated to
fundamental and applied research in information and
communication science and technology (ICST).
Budgetary Resources:
• 250 M Euros
Human Resources:
• 4,300 persons including 3500 researchers
Scientific Activities:
• 208 research teams
• 4,850 scientific publications
Industrial Relations:
• Around 1000 software
- But INRIA is not an editor: research prototypes only

3. Inria, a player in free software
Inria is convinced that free software plays an essential role in
developing a digital society
• Inria distributes today over 500 free software
Numerous OS communities : Scilab, Monolix, Amaya, Coq, …
CeCILL licenses
Strategic member of OW2
Launch of the IRILL, (the Initiative for Research and Innovation in
Free Software)

4. Impact and Transfer
We believe that
• Integration of research results => Increase of competitiveness
• In open source components => significant productivity gain
• Open source => fluid transfer and innovation activities.
Open Source software coming from research activities , called
innovative OS, is a really interesting object for technology transfer,
which is essential to produce the innovation on which the
competitiveness of modern industry relies.
• IMPACT: to use
• TRANSFER: to edit
The good period:
• From a Me Too period to an innovative one

5. Observation
A large part of innovative open source is not visible by the industry
WHY???
Not so easy to answer
A lot of literature on commercial open source
Difficulties to apply directly this literature on innovative open
source
• High complexity, requiring real expertise
• Innovative

6. Launch of an analysis of Inria’s open source
asset
The followed method is
• Internal poll to identify the visible open source software
• Interviews
• Analysis
• Identification of common points
50 visible software have been identified
20 have been deeply analyzed

7. Definition
Utilisateurs passifs
Utilisateurs actifs
Développeurs/ leaders
Communauté
Contributeurs
Owner / Core
developers

8. First results
A very few community of contributors
Most of them are communities of users
Motivation of researchers is a key element
• Requires a lot of personal involvement
Communication is essential
• Mailing list
• IRC
• Beautiful website
• Documentation + tutorial

9. Ideal life cycle of innovative open source
Identification of a common life cycle based on OSRL (Open Source
Readiness Levels)
• 5 – 15 years
• Community may evolve
Size of the
community
Software
maturity Research
First steps Communauty
Project
in Open building
project maturation
Source
OSRL 1 OSRL 2 OSRL 3 OSRL 4
Logiciel
Communauté
t
Qualification Birth of a community Start of maturation Output
of users
Birth of a community
ff contributors

10. Conclusion
A common language with industry: OSRL
• In which OSRL phase is your software?
Professionalization => Confidence
It remains several obstacles to maximize IMPACT and TRANSFER
=> WAIT FOR NEXT YEAR !!! OWF 2012
To be noted: “open source innovation catalyst” track during
OW2Con the 24rd of November 2011 in Paris.

11. Thanks for your attention
Do you have any questions?