In a recent video, Hans van der Kwast, Associate Professor of Open Science and Digital Innovation, covers “Digital sovereignty and open-source software”.
In 30 minutes, Hans defines and explores sovereignty as it pertains to digital goods and services and how it interacts with international jurisdiction. He highlights the potential of open-source software for empowering users, be it individuals, communities, governments, or enterprises. At minute 13, the video looks at QGIS as a case study of the open-source model in the geospatial sector.
I found particularly interesting:
- the discussion of the open-source value chain1 and monetization (starting at 15:50),
- the discussion of two paths for commercial open-source – the solution-based model (starting at 17:30) and the productized SaaS2 model (starting at 19:00)
- and the challenges for open-source in the procurement process (starting at 22:00).
Footnotes
As a tangent to this video (and not focussed on geospatial), there is currently an interesting discussion around the open-source multimedia tool
ffmpeg, the burden on open-source maintainers and the role and responsibilities of large tech companies benefitting from open-source software.↩︎Software as a Service↩︎