Context: IoT standards are vital for interoperability and longevity, with Open Source Software (OSS) implementations preventing vendor lock-in. These implementations form vast software ecosystems on platforms like GitHub, where industrial participation is crucial. Goal: This study characterizes industrial involvement (participation, leadership, collaboration) across the software ecosystems of four IoT standards (LwM2M, NB-IoT, CoAP, Zigbee) from different standards-setting organizations. It also investigates how software licensing, particularly OSS licenses, reflects and shapes this involvement. Method: We analyzed software projects related to these standards that are publicly available on the GitHub platform, examining authorship of commits, bug reports, pull requests, and metadata like licenses. We identified organizational affiliations (corporate or academic) of contributors to assess their presence and leadership. We performed a licensing analysis to understand the legal frameworks governing these projects. Results: Our research shows significant diversity in ecosystem scale and activity, with a consistent pattern of major corporate and organizational leadership in highly active projects. Despite robust institutional involvement, a pervasive issue is the widespread absence of explicit software licenses, even in collaborative and active repositories. When licenses are present, permissive OSS licenses (e.g., Apache-2.0, MIT) dominate. This indicates a complex and often ambiguous legal landscape. Conclusion: IoT standard ecosystem growth is driven by established organizations. Addressing the prevalent lack of licensing is crucial for fostering clearer collaboration, mitigating legal risks, and ensuring long-term sustainability and adoption of these foundational technologies.

Open hardware and open source software platforms bring benefits to both implementers and users in the form of system adaptability and maintainability, and through the avoidance of lock-in, for example. Development of the RISC-V Instruction Set Architecture and processors during the last ten years has made the implementation of a desktop computer using open hardware, including open processors, and open source software an approaching possibility. We use the SiFive Unmatched development board and Ubuntu Linux, and the recorded experiences of system builders using the Unmatched board to explore the extent to which it is possible to create an open desktop computer. The work identifies current limitations to implementing an open computer system, which lie mainly at the interface between the operating system and hardware components. Potential solutions to the challenges uncovered are proposed, including greater consideration of openness during the early stages of product design. A further contribution is made by an account of the synergies arising from open collaboration in a private-collective innovation process.

No abstract available.