I have been the director of OW2 Consortium since its foundation in 2006, which I served as the President from 2013 to 2014. I’m also Architectures & Consulting Services director at Engineering Group's Technical, Innovation & Research Division, within which I lead the Big Data and Open Source Competency Centers, as well as the Methodologies, Processes and Services work unit of Engineering's Software Labs

Referring to open source, in 2004 I founded SpagoWorld - Engineering Group’s open source initiative. Afterwards, I actively participated in the foundation of OW2, joined the Eclipse Foundation, and  encouraged my collaborators to contribute to some open source projects. I currently allow my company to be present wherever open source software is made.

SpagoWorld has created four projects in the context of OW2 and two in Eclipse, and has stimulated various initiatives, whose focus ranges from software architectures and services, to location intelligence and big data. The last one is the OW2 big data initiative.  One among many, today SpagoBI is a project that continues to help the evolution of the only suite for Business Intelligence and Big Data that is completely open source, with a high international reputation.

Currently I’m the corporate representative for Engineering Group at Eclipse Foundation. Referring to OSI,  I’m both an individual member, the affiliate member representative for OW2 and the “corporate contact point” for Engineering Group, as the company is an OSI corporate sponsor.

As a director at Engineering Group, I occasionally serve as organizational or program committee member for some conferences dealing with open source, software processes and big data. In the past, I held senior management positions in the fields of project and product management, software process improvement and design of innovative software architectures. I have lectured at Engineering's ICT Training School on software engineering & quality and I have been adjunct professor for open source software at the University of Padua, Italy. Supporter of various initiatives bringing innovation to research and education, I often cooperate with research institutes, universities and students through workshops, presentations, internships and degree thesis support.

As you can see, I’m neither a developer, nor an hacker. My experience refers to the industrial adoption of open source software, both in the company where I’m currently operating and in OW2 community, thanks to its  focus on promoting the development of open source projects and its collaborative strategy that help them gain “market recognition”. This is the first stage for the commercial success of open source software.

I do believe that open source means – practically - getting something for free, but also giving something more in return. Giving to share: this is crucial. If you do what you love and believe in, everything will come naturally. This applies every time you embrace the spirit of the community and you try to give something. You have also a lot to learn.

More than ten years ago, I founded the SpagoWorld initiative because open source is not just about using it, but also developing code. Only by "doing things" do you really learn. If you want to learn about open source, you have to "get your hands dirty", develop, deploy, enter the international community, understand how to integrate, share and resolve conflicts, and also solve the complexity of licenses and related legal issues. Nowadays, acting in the social and technological innovation field, I do believe that the open production leads to knowledge gain where diversity is an opportunity. Sharing ideas and artefacts, collaborating, adopting an open and multidisciplinary approach, help to find and give value to people! This applies every time you decide to look beyond achieving immediate results, every time you embrace the spirit of the community and you try to give more than you can get. Active participation, collaboration and sharing are key factors.

These are essentially the reason why I’m considering volunteering to serve OSI in order to advocate for open source, thanks to the support of both OW2 community and Engineering Group. I do believe in the role of OSI as a community-building organization, in particular building bridges between open source communities and open organizations, despite their diverse roles and missions.

Humbly speaking, I will dedicate some of my time and experience to make this happen.

For a better understanding of my commitment to open source,  read my considerations  in SpagoWorld blog.