Title: The Challenge of Open Source and Open Hardware - Bruce Perens

Abstract: Open Source has become the leadingproducer in many software markets, including software-defiined radio. But many companies fail to understand the economic motivation for cooperating in Open Source development. Participation in Open Source is no longer optional for many technology businesses - not participating means losing business opportunities, increasing time-to-market, and under-funding the company's business differentiators. But it seems to run against their emphsis on intellectual property. How do they resolve that? Now there's a newcomer beyond Open Source software - designs of physical and elecronic objects that are treated as if they are Open Source software, and developed by broad communities. Open Hardware presents new opportunities and challenges to companies that may just now be coming to grips with Open Source software.

Bio: Bruce Perens is one of the founders of the Open Source movement in software. But he's lived on both sides of the "intellectual property" issue, spending 19 years in the feature film industry, including 12 years at Pixar. He has a credit on the films Toy Story II and A Bug's Life. Perens represented Open Source at the U.N. Summit on the Information Society, and is the editor of Bruce Perens' Open Source Series,24 books on Open Source published by Prentice Hall. While continuing to be a develop innovative software, Perens is a strategic consultant and expert witness to law firms, corporations, and governments that are dealing with issues of Open Source and Open Hardware. Most recently, he's involved in an innovative project in software-defined radio.