Selling Stuff That's Free: the Commercial Side of Free Software

The rise of open source and open systems over the past 20 years has been nothing short of world-changing. Open source is the unrivaled winner in data center operating systems and software, and many of the world's most successful technology companies would be hobbled without the deep and wide benefits of shared and community-developed infrastructure. New industry giants are able to stand on the shoulders of existing giants to expand and extend for the benefit of technology both enterprise and consumer worldwide.

This is true in the sense of both technology and business.

Our panelists span the technology and business aspects of open source, with diverse expertise and experience.

The first run of a panel with this same topic took place in San Diego at the 1996 USENIX Annual Technical Conference when it was much less clear that "this open stuff" would prove to become commercially viable.

Please join us for a lively discussion of the technical and business aspects of open source and what the next 20 years might have in store. We want this to be an interactive session, so please bring your insightful questions for our panelists.

1996 Moderator: Mary Baker, Stanford University
2015 Moderator: Mary Baker, Hewlett-Packard

1996 Panelists: Bob Bruce, Walnut Creek CD-ROM (now part of iXSystems); Bill Davidow, Mohr, Davidow Ventures; Michael Tiemann, Cygnus Support (now part of Red Hat); Linus Torvalds, University of Helsinki

2015 Panelists: Jim Zemlin, Executive Director, Linux Foundation; Allison Randal, President, Open Source Initiative (OSI) and Distinguished Engineer, Hewlett-Packard; Jordan Hubbard, CTO, iXsystems; Sarah Guo, Investor, Greylock Partners