Open Source as a Business: Strategy, Struggle & Success

A presentation at Freenode #live in November 2018 in Bristol, UK by Philipp Krenn

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Open Source as a Business Strategy, Struggle & Success Philipp Krenn @xeraa @xeraa

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[...] allow software to be freely used, modified, and shared. https://opensource.org/licenses @xeraa

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https://twitter.com/ geowolf/status/ 971811346823221248

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Ninety-eight-point-five percent of the code ever put into the core of Puppet was put in there by somebody I paid. Luke Kaines (founder of Puppet), https://www.geekwire.com/2018/might-time-bigcloud-share-wealth-open-source-startups/ @xeraa

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Open Source ≠ Business Model @xeraa

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Open source is a distribution model that allows us to build community. It’s a force multiplier. Shay Banon, Elastic @xeraa

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@xeraa

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Developer @xeraa

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@xeraa

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!"# Where is the ? @xeraa

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Agenda Strategy Struggle Success @xeraa

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Strategy @xeraa

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Services Support, Consulting, Training, Certification @xeraa

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@xeraa

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https://investors.redhat.com/~/media/Files/R/Red-Hat-IR/documents/q418-fact-sheet.pdf

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Support Problem Ease of Use @xeraa

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Support Problem Renewal Rates @xeraa

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Service & Training Problem Consulting-Only Competition @xeraa

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Open Core @xeraa

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@xeraa

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Problem Competing Tools @xeraa

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Problem Less Open, More Commercial @xeraa

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Problem Cloud Providers @xeraa

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Cloud Service @xeraa

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Problem Cloud Providers @xeraa

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The intent of open source software was not so that someone else can take the exact same software and offer it as a service. https://www.geekwire.com/2018/might-time-big-cloud-share-wealth-open-sourcestartups/ @xeraa

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Partnerships @xeraa

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Problem Domain Specific @xeraa

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Donations @xeraa

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Problem Scaling & Planning @xeraa

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For Patreon/donations to be a viable business model, have to put in just as much work as you’d have to do selling services/product, likely ending up w less from donations You can point to donation models that had it easy & I can point to traditional businesses that got lucky too https://twitter.com/sehurlburt/status/1036091578060656640 @xeraa

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Certified Partners @xeraa

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Problem Requires Commercial Ecosystem @xeraa

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Ads @xeraa

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Problem What Is Acceptable @xeraa

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Merchandise @xeraa

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@xeraa

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Problem Revenue @xeraa

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Bounty / Crowdfunding @xeraa

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Problem Vision & Maintainablility @xeraa

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Corporate Sponsoring @xeraa

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https://aws.github.io

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Problem Incentives @xeraa

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Struggle @xeraa

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Philosophy @xeraa

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If you are claiming your startup/company is open source and you aren’t contributing to some form of upstream... then you aren’t really. Sorry not sorry. https://twitter.com/jessfraz/status/954802380125736961 @xeraa

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Contributors Users Consumers @xeraa

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[...] Amazon, on one hand, bashes the open source ecosystem and highlights the advantage of its own tools, while at the same time taking projects like Presto, which was developed in the open by Facebook, and turning it into a packaged, revenue-generating product (the newly announced Athena service). https://dzone.com/articles/did-amazon-just-kill-open-source @xeraa

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[...] If you are MSFT and I ask you if you’ve used Redis and you say "you mean Azure Redis Cache?", that’s not a good sign. https://twitter.com/jensenharris/status/984268950136537088 @xeraa

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@xeraa

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RedisLabs Modules: AGPL Apache 2 modified with Commons Clause (2018/08) RediSearch, Redis Graph, ReJSON, ReBloom, Redis-ML @xeraa

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Without limiting other conditions in the License, the grant of rights under the License will not include, and the License does not grant to you, the right to Sell the Software. https://commonsclause.com @xeraa

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Commons Clause Still OSS? Why not AGPL? @xeraa

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Confusion CC Apache 2 modified with Commons Clause https://commons.apache.org @xeraa

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Some rabid open-source wonks accused Redis Labs of trying to trick the community into thinking that modules were open source, because they used the word “Apache.” https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/07/commons-clause-stops-open-source-abuse/ @xeraa

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Be aware that the debate starting up about the Common Clause license due to Redis Labs adopting it will likely be heavily tainted by large corporations who have a lot of free labor to lose suddenly pretending to be huge champions of free software ideals. https://twitter.com/taotetek/status/1032248562116186112 @xeraa

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Redis: BSD "Redis will remain BSD licensed" http://antirez.com/news/120 "Redis is not "open core" http://antirez.com/news/121 @xeraa

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@xeraa

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Neo4j Enterprise consists of modules from Neo4j Community Edition [GPLv3] and modules licensed under AGPLv3 with the Commons Clause in this repository, and other closed source components not present in this repository. https://github.com/neo4j/neo4j @xeraa

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@xeraa

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AGPL Server / Apache Clients Server Side Public License (2018/10) @xeraa

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"13. Offering the Program as a Service." https://www.mongodb.com/licensing/server-side-public-license @xeraa

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SSPL Still OSS? Why not AGPL? @xeraa

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Timing Effective Today @xeraa

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! Users @xeraa

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If you’re unhappy with an open source project you’re entitled to a full, immediate refund to the $0.00 you paid for it. Alternatively, get involved with the project to make it better. https://twitter.com/MikeMcQuaid/status/970000490468708352 @xeraa

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@xeraa

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Money @xeraa

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Conflict of Interest Open Source vs Commercial View @xeraa

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Venture Capital Accelerated Development vs Calling the Shots @xeraa

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Development Hobbled Product vs Starving Company @xeraa

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Commercial Code Open / Visible Code vs Closed Source @xeraa

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Tricks Open Source but... @xeraa

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Success @xeraa

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Business Is Optional @xeraa

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Business Is Complicated @xeraa

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It saddens me that closed source companies are acclaimed for merely putting a piece of code on GitHub, while commercial open source companies get the worse shit for any action that involves protecting their work. https://twitter.com/icecrime/status/1032155227368185856 @xeraa

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Time for an Updated Model? @xeraa

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MongoDB seeks to do what the FSF failed to do in 2007: close the “ASP loophole.” That is, to make the GPL (and open source) more relevant to the cloud era by ensuring those that modify and distribute open source as a cloud service contribute back. https://twitter.com/mjasay/status/1052191818937327616 @xeraa