April 18, 2006
Workshop to Examine Impact of Revolutionary Production Method

AUSTIN, Texas—The University of Texas at Austin will host an open source workshop May 2 that will bring together top thinkers from business, legal and technical areas to discuss how business and law will be affected as the practice of open sourcing becomes more widely adopted.

The workshop will coincide with the World Congress on Information Technology, a biennial conference for world leaders in information technology, business and government, held in Austin May 1-5.

The workshop is free and open to the public but registration is required. For more information including directions and registration, please see:
www.mccombs.utexas.edu/events/osworkshop.

Open source refers to the process of making public the content of intellectual property so that others can review, critique and make improvements. Open sourcing has thrived in the computer software industry and for online resources such as Wikipedia. But now it is being adopted by traditional businesses for marketing, sales, and research and development.

“Every time internet users search on Google, shop at Amazon or trade on eBay, they rely on open-source software—products that are often built by volunteers and cost nothing to use…. Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia with around 2.6m entries in more than 120 languages, gets more visitors each day than the New York Times's site, yet is created entirely by the public. There is even an open-source initiative to develop drugs to treat diseases in poor countries.”

— The Economist Mar 16th, 2006

Topics will include:

• Business value creation: How will profitable open source business models look in the future?

• Peer-production businesses for cultural content: What are the challenges facing the next generation of models for the billion-dollar music industry?

• Open source models in R&D and marketing: The panel will explore the successes and failures of these endeavors.

• The Creative Commons (CC) model: This successful initiative is devoted to legally expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon and share. What is the viability of CC model?

• Leadership and management in open source organizations: What approaches, technologies, social designs, reward structures, and coordination methods result in effective open source organizations?

“The Future of Open Source Peer Production Models: Business and Legal Frontiers” will take place at the UT School of Law in the Connally Center for Justice Building (CCJ) in the Sheffield Room.