OK, so I’m on an ABB kick, it seems. Today is the annual report from the ARC Advisory Group on Distributed Control Systems (DCS) market share. And for the 21st consecutive year, the leader is ABB.
When you are older, you have memories. I remember a time when it was just A and BB. The BB part purchased our building when a certain company president drove us into Chapter 7 of the bankruptcy code. (Not me, I tried to get us out.) Then A+BB=ABB, then ABB consolidating the DCS market by acquiring a number of companies. And ABB has managed not only to not screw up the acquisitions (which many companies do) but build a sustainable product line. Following is the release from ABB:
ARC estimates the global market valued at $15 billion. Holding an overall share of 19.2%, ABB leads the field thanks to its domain knowledge in multiple industries, extensive service network and a continued investment in technology and digital solutions that meet rapidly changing customer requirements. This puts ABB more than two points ahead of the nearest DCS competitor.
The largest share of 2019 DCS market growth came from oil and gas, chemicals, mining, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, followed by food & beverage, metals, cement, and pulp & paper. With its two main DCS offerings, ABB Ability System 800xA and ABB Ability Symphony Plus, ABB has a strong presence in each of these segments. ABB is also a leader in several of the key DCS trends identified in the report, including Modular Automation, Batch, Characterizable I/O, and Remote Services.
As the DCS leader, ABB continuously develops new control benefits for customers. For example, by processing the massive amounts of data generated by the DCS, ABB continues to develop new data analytics that help customers to increase production efficiency, and leverage machine learning capabilities that improve problem predictability and extend asset life.
“I want to thank our customers for their longstanding support, helping us to shape ABB’s automation offering and expertise into what it is today,” said Bernhard Eschermann, Chief Technology Officer, ABB Industrial Automation. “Automation makes a difference in the world around us. The DCS is the backbone for much of the digitalization transforming our customers’ industries. It helps to provide many of the elements essential to modern society, such as the water we drink, the energy we consume, or the materials used to build our homes.”
“During more robust economic times, process industry producers often rely on new production machinery to increase output. In the current highly demanding economic environment, customers are squeezing as much value as they can out of existing assets, running as efficiently as possible to protect profit margins. Maximizing assets and efficiencies is what DCS do,” he said. “We see it as our duty to continue to develop solutions that offer these benefits and more for our customers.”
A key focus of ABB’s annual $1.5 billion research & development investment is the further expansion of DCS and other digital and automation capabilities in the context of Industry 4.0. In July, ABB brought two new offerings to market that use DCS data with value-added applications to improve customer production availability, process performance and product quality. The ABB Ability Edgenius Operations Data Manager gleans value from DCS data, while the ABB Ability GenixIndustrial Analytics and AI Suite combines data from operations (e.g. DCS), engineering and information technology for multi-dimensional data analytics and decision support.
Services saw the highest growth in relation to software and hardware in the ARC report. This trend accelerated in 2020, which created a high need for remote services. One such service, ABB Ability Collaborative Operations, a remote-enabled network of ABB experts and technologies, uses many ABB DCS technologies to remotely monitor and support customer assets and processes. ABB experts in ABB Collaborative Operations centers globally are available 24/7 to assist customers. The Collaborative Operations network continues to provide remote support for customers in travel-restricted situations.
https://new.abb.com/control-systems/system-800xa
Underground mining future
ABB electrification and automation knowledge and solutions have been employed in a pioneering mine of the future project, which has ultimate ambitions to demonstrate zero carbon dioxide emissions and productivity increases of 50 percent.
ABB has provided electrification, connected control and operations management systems, high-visualization and mobile operator workplaces as part of a global mining partnership to visualize a once-in-a-generation technology shift and reduce climate impact.
Devised by LKAB, the Sustainable Underground Mining (SUM) project has the goal of setting a new world standard for sustainable mining at great depths in partnership with ABB, Combitech, Epiroc, and Sandvik. The framework outlines ambitions for zero carbon dioxide emissions, completely safe mines for humans, productivity increases of 50 per cent and deeper mining.
ABB will continue to contribute its knowledge in electrification, automation and workplaces together with other suppliers to the mining industry. The collaboration aims to find new methods and smarter solutions for mining operations in the future. Test work in LKAB’s Kiruna mine, northern Sweden, as well as a virtual test mine will study the best way to build a carbon dioxide free and autonomous production system.
Within the mine, the Konsuln orebody is used to demonstrate future workplaces in a decentralized environment with efficient use of an autonomous electrical mobile transport system in a mixed environment. Real time process information is available to all organizations involved. When combined with the wider efforts of the SUM partnership, this shows a way of bringing completely new technology solutions to market for safer, more sustainable and more efficient mining production processes.
“We are taking significant strides towards a vision of the future operator environment through smarter working and demonstrable results,” said Jan Nyqvist, Global Product Manager for Underground Mining Automation at ABB, and one of the leaders in the project. “Electrification and automation are two important factors for the mining industry to continue its rapid, but effective, modernization. Sharing of information and data is crucial to reach substantial end goals.
“It is becoming increasingly common for suppliers to create dedicated collaboration groups to reach the best possible solutions for their customers. Collective successes and progress and the meeting of key targets for SUM, are initial evidence of the mutual benefits of collaboration.”
ABB has a relatively large team committing time to the project, with experts in digitalization and research, as well as electrification and automation.
By 2022, the ABB electrification and automation solutions will be fully installed, and the aim is that a new standard for mining production will be set globally by 2030.
I have accumulated several pieces of news from ABB. The company has spent the Covid months quite busy.
Peter Terwiesch, President of ABB Industrial Automation becomes executive member of the EU Alliance established to kick-start the European hydrogen industry.
ABB supports India’s Koppal district to ease water shortages with digital water management solutions.
ABB launches ABB Ability Safety Plus for hoists ensuring the highest level of personnel and equipment safety.
Clean Hydrogen Industry
ABB has been granted membership into the European Clean Hydrogen Alliance (ECH2A), the official EU body focused on an ambitious deployment of hydrogen (H2) technologies by 2030, as a means to reduce carbon emissions and help achieve European carbon neutrality by 2050.
Peter Terwiesch
Peter Terwiesch will be ABB’s executive sponsor in the Alliance and will be actively working with governments and other Alliance members to scale up the hydrogen value chain across Europe.
The use of hydrogen has been identified as crucial to achieve the objectives of the European Green Deal and Europe’s clean energy transition. It has several uses, from storing renewable energy to fuelling heavy transport, and as energy and feedstock in energy-intensive industry, such as in the steel or chemical sectors.
Most importantly, hydrogen only emits water and heat when used, no carbon. In fact, if H2 is produced from renewable sources, the whole hydrogen value chain is carbon-free. Hydrogen thereby is an excellent complement to electricity and offers a solution to decarbonize industrial processes and economic sectors where reducing carbon emissions is both urgent and hard to achieve.
“Europe’s opportunity to reduce carbon emissions by scaling up the production, transport and use of hydrogen is significant. Automation, electrification and digitalization will play an important role in unlocking this potential. At ABB we are proud to be joining the ECH2A, to continue our collaborations with governments, industries, regulators and academia to further accelerate the implementation of hydrogen,” said Peter Terwiesch, President of ABB Industrial Automation. “We have a unique mix of relevant domain expertise and solutions to support industry and make a real difference in deploying new clean hydrogen technologies.”
ABB enables the transition from carbon-based fuels to hydrogen through its expertise and portfolio of systems, products, services and digital solutions. The company is collaborating with customers, partners and legislators to build the hydrogen ecosystem – from key technology collaborations to explore large-scale green production systems, to a new hydrogen production facility in France, and the development of megawatt-scale fuel cells to power large ocean-going ships.
In a unique project led by L&T Construction Water & Effluent Treatment IC for the Government of Kartanaka, ABB’s end-to-end solutions will help the local water authority to track, measure, and optimize water use in this drought-stricken region of southwest India, as well as pump and distribute clean treated river water to village homes. The solution includes 635 digital flowmeters and technologies to improve control at pumping stations and reservoirs.
With a population of around one million people, the Koppal district is regularly challenged by water shortages. Until now, responses have ranged from preserving ancient wells to following age-old water conservation practices, but thanks to digital technologies, the Kushtagi and Yelburga villages will soon benefit from ABB’s digital water management solutions as part of a multi-village clean drinking water scheme.
Koppal needed solutions that could effectively monitor water flow and manage leaks to reduce non-revenue water and achieve overall productivity improvement in a widely dispersed water distribution network set-up. L&T Construction Water & Effluent Treatment IC, the lead contractor for the project, chose ABB Ability Symphony Plus SCADA and ABB’s AquaMaster 4 flowmeters for the project, sanctioned by the Rural Water Supply & Sanitation Department, Koppal, Karnataka.
ABB’s engagement spans the end-to-end automation and instrumentation of the project, from the pumping station at the river to the treatment of clean drinking water. The route comprises 620 overhead tanks and 16 reservoirs. The project involves putting in place a network of RTUs (remote terminal units) for remote locations and pumping stations and ABB Ability Symphony Plus SCADA to supervise and control the operation. ABB Ability Symphony Plus SCADA is designed to maximize reliability and availability of water plants and networks through integrated information management, integration of equipment, and process optimization based on the entire water network data for safer and enhanced operations.
The SCADA solutions help monitor and analyze daily flow consumption patterns thereby identifying possible leaks and sending the information in real-time to the central control room. This helps to avert water loss because it means that leaks are identified and can be repaired swiftly.
ABB’s AquaMaster 4 elctromagnetic flowmeters, running on battery power, will offer reliability even in low flow conditions, in areas where most mechanical flowmeters would fail. They offer measurement accuracy down to flow velocities lower than 0.1m/s where most meters struggle to even detect flow. As the vast majority of leaks are small but continuous, the ability of AquaMaster to detect small variations in flow is crucial in combating the water shortage challenge in the Koppal district.
G Srinivas Rao, Head of ABB Measurement & Analytics in India, said: “As India moves swiftly towards smart and sustainable villages, towns and cities, one of the key challenges is water management. This project shows how ABB’s digital water management solutions can be deployed not only in cities but also to provide clean, drinking water in the villages that are crucial to our agrarian economy. We are proud partners in this project in the state where ABB India is headquartered, and in the district which contributes so significantly to our agricultural output.”
ABB Ability Safety Plus for hoists
Global technology company ABB is launching ABB Ability Safety Plus for hoists, a suite of mine hoist safety products that brings the highest level of personnel and equipment safety available to the mining industry. The products include Safety Plus Hoist Monitor (SPHM), Safety Plus Hoist Protector (SPHP) and Safety Plus Brake System (SPBS) including Safety Brake Hydraulics (SBH).
Designed in accordance with the international ‘safety of machinery’ standard (IEC62061), the products have been independently certified by research institute RISE (Research Institute of Sweden) which works with companies, academia and the public sector in industrialization, quality assurance and certification.
ABB Ability Safety Plus for hoists includes the new ABB SIL 3 Safety Plus Brake System (SPBS), which is the mining industry’s first fully independently certified Safety Integrity Level 3 (SIL 3) mine hoist brake system. SPBS will increase the safety of personnel riding mine hoists as well as the safety of the equipment, hoist and shaft infrastructure. The new SPHP provides enhanced protection for the mine hoist and mine shaft infrastructure equipment.
ABB SIL 3 SPBS handles the application of the safety brakes during emergency stops and the prevention of brake lift. ABB SIL 3 SPHP monitors the speed and position of the hoists. It also monitors the instrumentation used by personnel accessing or using the hoist from different levels, for example, at gates and maintenance platforms, emergency stop buttons and remote lockout points. The ABB SIL 3 SPHP interfaces with the safety brake system to bring or keep the hoist to a safe state. It also interfaces with the drive and hoist control system.
“This is a significant milestone in mine hoist safety representing a world first for fully certified Safety Integrity Level 3 hoisting,” said Oswald Deuchar, Global Product Line Manager for Hoisting, ABB. “Labor safety is a key priority for mine operators and increasing legislation underlines this imperative. The ABB Ability Safety Plus for hoists suite of products, SIL 3-rated components and self-diagnostics will ensure high availability of the mine hoist while providing the highest level of safety. These products are ready-made safety solutions, which are exhaustively tested in house, and designed for tough mine environments.”
Combination of Onshape and Arena to Enable PTC to DeliverComplete CAD + PLM SaaS Solution
PTC Reaffirms Cash Flow Targets for FY’21
PTC announced Dec. 14 that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Arena Solutions, Inc. (Arena Solutions) “the industry’s leading software-as-a-service (SaaS) product lifecycle management (PLM) platform provider”.
I am not particularly surprised by this announcement. PTC needed to do something interesting with cash from some past investments. Jim Heppelmann, PTC CEO, clearly stated last year the company’s direction toward becoming a complete SaaS provider. In the IT world, HPE first and then Dell Technologies and Hitachi Vantara later, companies are rapidly moving to pretty much “everything-as-a-service”.
This may not be a market disrupter in itself, but the move definitely applies pressure to other PLM suppliers to change business models. Responses will be telling.
The acquisition will further PTC’s strategy to be the leader in the rapidly growing market for SaaS-based product development software, enabling the company to deliver a complete CAD + PLM SaaS solution. Under the terms of the agreement, PTC will acquire Arena Solutions for $715 million in cash. Subject to customary closing conditions and completion of regulatory review, the acquisition is expected to be completed in PTC’s fiscal Q2 2021.
“A year ago, PTC entered the SaaS world for product development software with our acquisition of Onshape,” said Jim Heppelmann, president and CEO, PTC. “That move reflected our strong conviction that our market is nearing a tipping point in its willingness to adopt SaaS technology, following the trend seen in many other software markets. The effects of COVID-19 have dramatically accelerated this inevitable shift, with PTC customer surveys indicating a 25% increase in readiness for SaaS PLM since the pandemic started. We expect the acquisition of Arena will significantly extend our leadership position as we continue to redefine the future of our industry.”
With headquarters in Foster City, California, Arena Solutions serves more than 1,200 customers across the electronics, high-tech, and medical-device industries, including world-class innovators such as Nutanix, Peloton, Sonos and Square. In addition, Arena will broadly extend PTC’s presence in the attractive mid-market, where SaaS solutions are becoming the standard.
“As the SaaS PLM pioneer, we were first to see that engineers and product developers would benefit from a new paradigm in the way they collaborate and drive product innovation,” said Craig Livingston, Arena Solutions president and CEO. “We were ahead of the market in the early days, but in the past several years we’ve seen an acceleration of market receptivity and demand. This acquisition validates our original vision, and we are pleased to be joining an established leader in CAD and PLM capable of hastening the movement of our market to SaaS.”
The Arena Solutions product realization platform unifies PLM, quality management, and requirements management, allowing every participant throughout the product design and manufacturing process – as well as across an extended supply chain – to work together in a secure, high availability cloud environment.
“This acquisition is the logical next step in PTC’s strategy to be the industrial SaaS leader,” continued Heppelmann. “A big first step was the acquisition of Onshape, the SaaS leader in CAD and collaborative design capabilities. Arena will enable us to round out the solution with full PLM capabilities and deliver the only complete CAD + PLM SaaS solution in the industry.”
Financial Impact
Arena Solutions is expected to end calendar year 2020 with approximately $50 million in annualized recurring revenue, reflecting double-digit growth over 2019. The transaction is expected to be neutral to PTC’s FY’21 cash flow from operations target of $365 million and free cash flow target of $340 million (which reflects the deduction of approximately $25 million of capital expenditures from cash flow from operations) and accretive to FY’22 and beyond. The transaction will be funded with cash on-hand and amounts borrowed under PTC’s existing credit facility.
PTC management will provide additional details about the transaction at its Investor Day virtual meeting scheduled for Tuesday, December 15.
Advisors
Centerview Partners LLC is the exclusive financial advisor to PTC and Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP is acting as its legal counsel. Barclays is the exclusive financial advisor to Arena and JMI Equity, and Goodwin Procter is acting as their legal counsel.
Everyone is imagining a post-Covid time, most likely coming by May or June 2021, wondering how many changes we’ve made this year to meetings, conferences, church services, and other gatherings. I have been receiving a steady stream of announcements for 2021 technology conferences. All of them up until May will build upon the tech foundations pioneered this year.
Many of the conferences have been well put together. They have packed information in a succinct package. I could actually attend several conflicting conferences without the hassle of either trying to travel to each or blow some off. There are benefits. As the year went on, some of the trade shows got interesting by adding Zoom or other technology to allow “booth chats” or “booth appointments” where a visitor could discuss products and questions in real time with a live engineer.
I’ve talked with many people about their reactions to church (for the Christian among you). Even Roman Catholic ladies were quite satisfied to watch church from home. The many varieties of Protestants seem to have adapted to staying home, as well, except for a small portion of the more conservative evangelicals who needed to brave exposure to Covid-19 due to the need for companionship (and many people I know did that and became infected, but that’s another story for another blog site).
This is an ideal time to leverage all of these experiments and experiences and look at the second half of 2021 and beyond as a time to do things differently. I would still like to see some in-person gatherings. I miss the conversations, meeting new people, personal contact that you get from being together. It has gotten to the point, though, that conversations have taken the place of actually going to sessions. I’d love a blend of learning online and meeting in person.
What triggered this post was this announcement from PTC about its LiveWorx conference. It is moving toward a continuous model strung out over the year rather than one shot at one time. Interesting. We’ll see how that works for it.
This upcoming year, LiveWorx is going to be a little bit different.
LiveWorx 2021: The Limited Series is a year-round high-impact digital program. Each episode will take its own approach to delivering fresh and relevant insight on digital transformation for the industrial enterprise in a TV show-style format. Throughout the year, viewers will hear perspectives from thought leaders, subject matter experts, technology practitioners and familiar faces from PTC as well.
There are two ways to watch: episodes will air live on key dates and will also be available afterwards on-demand, so viewers can pick and choose whichever is more convenient.
More details will be announced soon, so be sure to subscribe for LiveWorx 21 updates to learn more as 2020 turns into 2021.
Registration for LiveWorx 2021: The Limited Series will get underway in early 2021. The first episode is scheduled for early spring, with more to come afterwards throughout the rest of the year.
Zoom fatigue is very real at this point, and it’s worth noting that these episodes will be delivered through concise and high impact TV show-style broadcasts, each with a run time of less than two hours.
For a comprehensive rundown of general information about LiveWorx 21, visit our FAQ. If there’s anything additional that you’re curious about, you can always ask us here as well.
2020 has been a year unlike any other. Get ready for a whole new LiveWorx! We can’t wait for you to join us for this unique program in 2021.
In the interest of lateral thinking, try these innovative ideas on for size. When Qualcomm called with an invitation to a press event, my first thought was, “Me??” I attended, and I was glad I did. Many ideas worthy of pondering.
Qualcomm Technologies Inc. today announced the Qualcomm IoT Services Suite, which delivers comprehensive, end-to-end, IoT as a Service (IoTaaS) solutions to enable the digital transformation of smart cities and smart connected spaces globally. The Qualcomm IoT Services Suite also demonstrates the continued momentum of the Qualcomm Smart Cities Accelerator Program, which has brought together ~300 members since its launch in April 2019 and showcased a tangible example of what can be achieved with the launch of the Qualcomm Smart Campus in San Diego.
Adopting smart connected spaces often requires sourcing, developing and integrating a variety of fragmented technologies. In response, the Qualcomm Smart Cities Accelerator Program offers streamlined, comprehensive solutions that address the complexities and challenges around developing secure, smart, connected spaces across industries worldwide. Qualcomm Technologies’ newly announced Qualcomm IoT Services Suite is engineered to deliver a comprehensive, end-to-end solution for plug-and-play deployment, from silicon to modules to devices to software and platform integration.
When companies and municipalities utilize the Qualcomm IoT Services Suite and other solutions offered by members of the Qualcomm Smart Cities Accelerator Program, they can bypass common fragmentation –making it easier, quicker and more cost-effective to manage and deploy smart connected spaces.
“The Qualcomm Smart Cities Accelerator Program was designed for plug-and-play deployment of connected devices to enable the proliferation of smart cities and smart connected spaces,” said Sanjeet Pandit, senior director, business development and global head of Smart Cities, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “To directly address the fragmented nature of the IoT industry, our Qualcomm Smart Cities Accelerator Program and Qualcomm IoT Services Suite bridge the gap for IoT service providers and entities looking to quickly deploy smart solutions. We’re confident that our unique ecosystem of innovative program members will continue incorporating emerging IoT partners to accelerate the transformation of city infrastructure and services to help enrich people’s lives.”
Qualcomm Smart Cities Accelerator Program ecosystem member Infinite Computer Solutions provides support for the Qualcomm IoT Services Suite platform layer with its Zyter SmartSpaces Platform. This platform seamlessly integrates Qualcomm Technologies’ chipset-enabled subsystems to support middleware, data operations, cloud services, enhanced security, user experience, analytics, collective intelligence and artificial intelligence (AI). Commercial device enablement is then achieved through pre-integration and pre-certification on the platform.
With the comprehensive Qualcomm IoT Services Suite, Qualcomm Technologies enables ecosystem members to create and deploy smart applications as a service across verticals, including:
•Smart Cities and Spaces as-a-Service delivers solutions for smart lighting, signage, parking and more–all easily deployed with the Zyter Smart Spaces platform–for the accelerated development of smart cities and smart spaces.
•Education as-a-Service allows school districts across the United States direct access to ecosystem members, OneScreen and HoverCam, to enablesmart classrooms and hybrid learning settings.
•Construction Management as-a-Service prioritizes construction safety and digital management of construction sites, focusing on worker safety with ecosystem members Everguard and Guardhat.
•Logistics as-a-Service enables digital, end-to-end logistical chain management from teams to inventory with Cloudleaf, Inc. and Tag and Track.
•Healthcare as-a-Service provides direct access to ecosystem members Zyter, Lucid Act Health, VeeMed, and Ceiba for remote patient monitoring and tele-ICU capabilities.
To exemplify IoTaaS and bring to life a tangible proof point of the Qualcomm IoT Services Suite, today Qualcomm Technologies also launched the Qualcomm Smart Campus in San Diego, which exhibits a real-life use case of commercially available, end-to-end solutions. Replicating a city environment in a campus the Qualcomm Smart Campus includes a 5G network, and a variety of intelligent capabilities, including smart parking, lighting, transportation, logistics, trash cans, and edge-AI cameras for security. The Qualcomm Smart Campus is equipped with intuitive and user applications and corresponding command and control center that serves as the “nerve center” of the campus, providing complete operational visibility across entire networks of connected sensors and IoT devices in real-time –viewable from a comprehensive dashboard. These solutions can be reimagined and replicated across multiple industries to address challenges and needs for particular spaces and communities.
I have two Linux Foundation open source releases today. We connected through the EdgeX Foundry IoT platform. Then we discovered we had many common interests. One of the releases touches on a fundamental element of commerce and collaboration—trust. The Linux Foundation is an open source project. Open source is a powerful software development model. But, it takes many dedicated and talented people to accomplish the task. Why do people work on open source? LF conducted a survey to get an idea.
The Janssen Project Takes on World’s Most Demanding Digital Trust Challenges at Linux Foundation
New Janssen Project seeks to build the world’s fastest and most comprehensive cloud native identity and access management software platform
The Linux Foundation announced the Janssen Project, a cloud native identity and access management software platform that prioritizes security and performance for our digital society. Janssen is based on the Gluu Server and benefits from a rich set of signing and encryption functionalities. Engineers from IDEMIA, F5, BioID, Couchbase, and Gluu will make up the Technical Steering Committee.
Online trust is a fundamental challenge to our digital society. The Internet has connected us. But at the same time, it has undermined trust. Digital identity starts with a connection between a person and a digital device. Identity software conveys the integrity of that connection from the user’s device to a complex web of backend services. Solving the challenge of digital identity is foundational to achieving trustworthy online security.
While other identity and access management platforms exist, the Janssen Project seeks to tackle the most challenging security and performance requirements. Based on the latest code that powers the Gluu Server–which has passed more OpenID self-certification tests then any other platform–Janssen starts with a rich set of signing and encryption functionality that can be used for high assurance transactions. Having shown throughput of more than one billion authentications per day, the software can also handle the most demanding requirements for concurrency thanks to Kubernetes auto-scaling and advances in persistence.
“Trust and security are not competitive advantages–no one wins in an insecure society with low trust,” said Mike Schwartz, Chair of the Janssen Project Technical Steering Committee. “In the world of software, nothing builds trust like the open source development methodology. For organizations who cannot outsource trust, the Janssen Project strives to bring transparency, best practices and collective governance to the long term maintenance of this important effort. The Linux Foundation provides the neutral and proven forum for organizations to collaborate on this work.”
The Gluu engineering teams chose the Linux Foundation to host this community because of the Foundation’s priority of transparency in the development process and its formal framework for governance to facilitate collaboration among commercial partners.
New digital identity challenges arise constantly, and new standards are developed to address them. Open source ecosystems are an engine for innovation to filter and adapt to changing requirements. The Janssen Project Technical Steering Committee (“TSC”) will help govern priorities according to the charter. The initial TSC includes:
Michael Schwartz, TSC Chair, CEO Gluu
Rajesh Bavanantham, Domain Architect at F5 Networks/NGiNX
Rod Boothby, Head of Digital Trust at Santander
Will Cayo, Director of Software Engineering at IDEMIA Digital Labs
Ian McCloy, Principal Product Manager at Couchbase
Alexander Werner, Software Engineer at BioID
New Open Source Contributor Report from Linux Foundation and Harvard Identifies Motivations and Opportunities for Improving Software Security
New survey reveals why contributors work on open source projects and how much time they spend on security
The Linux Foundation’s Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) and the Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard (LISH) announced release of a new report, “Report on the 2020 FOSS Contributor Survey,” which details the findings of a contributor survey administered by the organizations and focused on how contributors engage with open source software. The research is part of an ongoing effort to study and identify ways to improve the security and sustainability of open source software.
The FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) contributor survey and report follow the Census II analysis released earlier this year. This combined pair of works represents important steps towards understanding and addressing structural and security complexities in the modern-day supply chain where open source is pervasive but not always understood. Census II identified the most commonly used free and open source software (FOSS) components in production applications, while the FOSS Contributor Survey and report shares findings directly from nearly 1,200 respondents working on them and other FOSS software.
Key findings from the FOSS Contributor Survey include:
The top three motivations for contributors are non-monetary. While the overwhelming majority of respondents (74.87 percent) are already employed full-time and more than half (51.65 percent) are specifically paid to develop FOSS, motivations to contribute focused on adding a needed feature or fix, enjoyment of learning and fulfilling a need for creative or enjoyable work.
There is a clear need to dedicate more effort to the security of FOSS, but the burden should not fall solely on contributors. Respondents report spending, on average, just 2.27 percent of their total contribution time on security and express little desire to increase that time. The report authors suggest alternative methods to incentivizing security-related efforts.
As more contributors are paid by their employer to contribute, stakeholders need to balance corporate and project interests. The survey revealed that nearly half (48.7 percent) of respondents are paid by their employer to contribute to FOSS, suggesting strong support for the stability and sustainability of open source projects but drawing into question what happens if corporate interest in a project diminishes or ceases.
Companies should continue the positive trend of corporate support for employees’ contribution to FOSS. More than 45.45 percent of respondents stated they are free to contribute to FOSS without asking permission, compared to 35.84 percent ten years ago. However, 17.48 percent of respondents say their companies have unclear policies on whether they can contribute and 5.59 percent were unaware of what policies – if any – their employer had.
The report authors are Frank Nagle, Harvard Business School; David A. Wheeler, the Linux Foundation; Hila Lifshitz-Assaf, New York University; and Haylee Ham and Jennifer L. Hoffman, Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard.
