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equipment integrators and distributors for ETCS onboard products and ser-
vices based on a common FLOSS standard core module, adapted to the needs
of the railway signaling sector providing high assurance products to be au-
thorized by safety authorities (NSA, NoBo).
The concept as shown in figure 9 assumes a license with Copy-Left, re-
quiring in general distributing the source code free of charge, even if code
has been added or modified and further distributed, so that the community
can re-use the improvements as well. That means that only certain “added
values” can be sold for a fee. Typical added values can be service for soft-
ware maintenance (bug-fixing), software adaptation for specific applications,
integration into embedded control hardware and integration into the vehicle
system, test and homologation services, training for personnel and so forth.
Fig. 9. Proposal for an openETCS eco-system using a neutral organization to coor-
dinate a so-called “co-competition” business model, showing flow of software source
code, bug reports and ad-on services provided for a fee.
For further development of the software, especially for the development of
new complex add-on functions, costly functional improvements, etc., it might
be dicult to find funding, since a Copy-Left in the FLOSS license requires
to publish that software free of charge, when distributed.
Therefore many OSS projects are using a so called “dual licensing policy”
(or even “multi license policy”), by offering the identical software under two
(or more) different license agreements (figure 10).
One might be the European EUPL, a Copy-Left type FLOSS license and
the other one can be a “For-Fee-License” (without Copy-Left), which does
not require publishing all modification. In exchange ac certain fee has to be
paid, which may also provide for warranty and other services. Combined with
