Both parties may be interested in such cooperation.
Authors of ideas, transferring their ideas and theories to free software development projects, will ultimately receive a tool that implements their ideas. At the same time, they will receive the tool for free, with the help of this tool they will be able to transfer (sell) the implementation of their ideas to other people and organizations who do not have to pay for software. For example, teachers can easily transfer practical training courses to other universities. When implementing the ideas and theories of authors in industrial enterprises, the latter will be able to avoid the cost of purchasing software. The developed software can be freely modified with the further development of ideas and theories.
Industrial software developers, in turn, will get ideas and theories that will allow the software being developed to acquire quality advantages.
Let us give an example of an idea from the field of process management of an enterprise used in free software.

The idea of ​​replacing performers of tasks with the help of special rules

Automation systems for process management distribute tasks to executives in accordance with business process diagrams, as well as monitor their implementation.
Substitution of task performers is used in cases where the user to whom the task is intended does not have the ability to perform it - for example, he is sick, on vacation or on a business trip. - The system redirects the task to another user.
Traditionally, this problem is solved by importing the organizational structure of an enterprise into the process management system and using substitution functions based on the position of employees in the administrative management system. In some systems, this problem is solved by inserting program code that implements job redirection directly into business processes.
Both of these solutions are inconvenient: The organizational structure of the enterprise is a separate entity and it is undesirable to duplicate it in the process management system, it is also used in other enterprise systems (ERP, CRM, etc.). In the case of using software code, the business process becomes inconvenient for modification, and changing the replacement often requires engaging a programmer.
But the main thing is that these decisions are inconvenient for managers, because they do not correspond to their thinking. In the case of executors of task executors, it is much more comfortable for managers to think “in terms of” people, not business processes. It is more convenient for them not to go through all the business processes in which the substitutable employee of the enterprise can theoretically participate, but to explicitly set a replacement for a specific employee, perhaps indicating at the same time some conditions under which the replacement will be performed.

The idea is as follows: In the process management system, we define a set of replacement rules as one of the properties of the executor of tasks.

Implementation of the idea

The idea was implemented in a Russian project to develop a free business process management system and administrative regulations of RunaWFE as follows:
In the user properties, the ability to set a set of substitution rules has been added. For a particular user, the substitution rule consists of two parts:

• Deputy (Function over the organizational structure of the enterprise, returning a substitute user)
• Condition of application of the rule (Criterion)

In fig. 1 shows the form for setting substitution rules in user properties

Fig. 1. Form for setting substitution rules
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To activate the substitution mechanism, a status was added to the user properties, which can take one of two values:

• Is active
• Not active

The substitution mechanism applies only to users who have the “inactive” status.

Substitution Rules Processing Algorithm

When forming the list of tasks of the executor, the substitution rules related to this executor are viewed from top to bottom until either the first appropriate substitution rule is found, in which the condition in the “criteria” is met and the substitute has the status “Active” found that there is no suitable rule.
If the task is found, this task will be redirected to the list of tasks for this deputy. In fig. 2, as an example, shows the list of the task of the user Babochkin , in which, according to the substitution rule, the task of the user Caterpillar is redirected.

Fig. 2. The redirected task in the user's task list

The practice of use has shown that the idea was successful. Such a substitution mechanism is more convenient for users than traditional solutions.