Open Source and Business…sigh

The Cloudcast

Every few years we have to be reminded that open source isn’t a business model. Let’s talk about the business dynamics that everyone seems to keep forgetting.

SHOW: 816

SHOW TRANSCRIPT: The Cloudcast #816

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SHOW NOTES:

• Adam Jacobs discusses open source and business (The Changelog)
• “figure out how to play nice with competition” (Twitter)
• The will never be another Red Hat - Economics of OSS (a16z)

OPEN SOURCE IS A LICENSE, NOT A BUSINESS MODEL

• There are rules around software licenses (e.g. Apache, GPL, etc.)
• There are no rules about how people feel about software, creators or maintainers

FREE, FREE TIERS, EXTENSIONS, CLONES

• Red Flags: Writes most of the code, took VC funding (multiple rounds)
• Green flags: Lots of diverse (companies) contributors
• Yellow flags: Foundation owns copyright
• “There’s the business side and there’s the hippie side of OSS”
• “I have endless ambitions”
• “I didn’t build a forever entity”
• “When is the rug pull going to happen?”
• If a company takes VC funding, is open source anything more than a marketing vehicle?
• “Docker figured it out and now they are doing like $100M”. Did they?
• When is OSS personal, and when is it a company?
• Will there never be another Red Hat, or just not another Linux?
• How much is too much when determining if a company should give things away for free?

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