A comparative analysis of industrial involvement and licensing in the open source software ecosystems of four IoT standards

Abstract

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.