Apereo Micro Conference with Manuel Hoffmann (12.11.2024)

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Talk Topic: The Value of Open Source Software
Speaker: Dr. Manuel Hoffmann, postdoctoral scholar at the Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard

Talk Description:
We all know OSS is valuable, but exactly how valuable? While we intuitively understand its importance as the foundation of modern technology, quantifying its economic impact has been challenging due to its free nature and decentralized usage patterns.

New research using global data from millions of companies reveals striking numbers that validate what the OSS community has long known:
The bare cost to create popular OSS packages: $4.15 billion
*The economic usage value delivered: $5.25 trillion to $88 trillion (depending on whether one firm recreates and resells the software or each firm recreate the software themselves in autarky)
Without OSS, corporate software spending would need to triple

In other words, OSS isn't just "free as in freedom" - it's delivering massive economic value that dwarfs its development costs by orders of magnitude. The research finally puts concrete numbers behind what OSS advocates have argued for years.

Objectives for this session:
1. Quantify the enormous gap between OSS creation costs and its economic usage value
2. Demonstrate why traditional economic measures severely undervalue OSS's impact
3. Provide data-backed arguments for continued investment in and support of OSS

More about our speaker:
Dr. Manuel Hoffmann is a postdoctoral scholar at the Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard, which is part of the Digital, Data, and Design Institute at Harvard Business School. He is also affiliated with Stanford University.

Dr. Hoffmann's broad research interests lie in the domain of technology and innovation management, focusing on the social and behavioral aspects of artificial intelligence and open source software. His work aims to better understand how both can be leveraged by large enterprises, medium-sized firms, and entrepreneurial ventures to more effectively compete in the market while adding value to society. He is particularly interested in the strategic implications of digital tools for open source software, a critical public good that underpins the modern economy. His previous research experience in labor and health economics has equipped him with the analytical tools to address managerially relevant questions within this dynamic and expanding field.