Fifteen Years of Open Source Software Evolution

Abstract

The Open Source Software (OSS) ecosystem and community has evolved enormously from the first edition of the OSS conference that took place in Genoa (Italy) in 2005. Such evolution happened in every aspect of OSS including research, technology, and business pushing its adoption to an unpredictable scale. Nowadays, it is almost impossible for people not using OSS in every interaction they have with technology. This fact is a tremendous success for OSS but such evolution and adoption has not always followed the intended path and some relevant deviations have occurred during such long journey. This paper provide an overview of the evolution of OSS in the three mentioned areas (research, technology, and business) highlighting the main aspects and identifying the current trends that will be the basis for its future evolution.