arch-multi-vendor-infra.ltx

\hypertarget{archetype:multi-vendor-infrastructure}{}
\subsection{Multi-Vendor Infrastructure}\label{archetype:multi-vendor-infrastructure}

{\bf Examples:} \emph{Kubernetes, Open Stack (but also has characteristics of ``Wide Open'')}

{\bf Characteristics:} Multi-Vendor Infrastructure are large software projects that provide
fundamental facilities to a wide array of other businesses.  This
infrastructure is designed collaboratively by multiple vendors and
then each deploys it in their own way.  Kubernetes and OpenStack are
two prominent Multi-Vendor Infrastructure projects that most developers
will have heard of.  Similarly, the LLVM/clang toolchain is a project
where collaboration allows the sharing of costs and resources on non-core business software.

Multi-Vendor Infrastructure efforts are driven by business needs rather than
individuals, and are open to relatively lightweight participation.  A good
way to distinguish a Multi-Vendor Infrastructure project from
Business-to-Business (B2B) Open Source is to look at how often contributors
continue to participate, in the same or similar roles, after they
switch employers.  When that phenomenon
occurs, it indicates that multiple organizations use the software as
infrastructure in roughly the same way, and thus the same person may
continue representing those technical priorities across different
organizations.

In other words, the difference between this and B2B Open Source is that less
organizational and process overhead is required to take part --- enough
less to make participating a qualitatively different proposition.  For
example, individual developers are generally more able and more
likely to make contributions to Kubernetes and OpenStack than they are
to Android, \emph{but} they still tend to do so from organizational
rather than from individual motivation.  These organizational
motivations often relate to tactical needs, and may be enabled by
mid-level management decisions.  By contrast, B2B open source tends to be
driven by corporate business strategy, and is thus more likely to
figure into executive-level decisions.

What this means for Mozilla is that if Mozilla clearly understands who
within its potential partners is authorizing participation, then
Mozilla will be much better positioned to tune the project's
collaboration processes --- and related things like conference
appearances, media strategies, further partner discovery, etc. --- so
as to maximize the benefit to Mozilla's mission.

Note that both the Multi-Vendor Infrastructure and the B2B Open Source archetypes are
patterns that achieve benefits at scale.  They are also patterns that
provide infrastructure to enable a varied set of third-party activity.
The largest advantage of open source to these ecosystems is broad
standardization (including informal or \foreignphrase{de facto} standardization).
Both the container world and the cloud ecosystem provide a set of
tools and pieces that can be combined together in standard ways to
provide custom solutions.  That standardization is necessary to allow
reconfiguration and customization.  It drives adoption at scale, and,
in a virtuous circle, the scale is what creates the \foreignphrase{de facto}
standards.  It would be difficult to achieve this dynamic with a
proprietary approach; open source lowers the cost of participation and
powers network effects that lead to scale.

\begin{itemize}
\item {\bf Licensing}: Typically non-copyleft, given that many members
  of the community are likely to maintain proprietary forks of the
  core product.
\item {\bf Community standards}: Welcoming, but formal, and often
  difficult for individual contributors to enter.  Participation takes
  a high level of resources.
\item {\bf Component coupling}: Loosely-coupled modules joined by 
  \foreignphrase{de facto} standards.
\item {\bf Main benefits}: Fosters collaboration with partner
  organizations to solve shared problems.
\item {\bf Typical governance}: Formal tech committee, with
  membership by each of the major contributing companies.
\end{itemize}