Should your developer company go open source?

3 months ago

Open-source is a strategic decision, not just a value statement.
Technical users care about open-source for inspection, self-hosting, and extensibility.
Non-technical buyers value open-source for lower vendor risk and reduced lock-in.
Federation-type OSS requires user and contributor personas to align.
Stadium OSS involves a core team building while the community watches or extends.
Open-source works best on well-understood problems with shared vocabulary.
OSS adoption is driven by bypassing permission and procurement processes.
Extensibility in OSS requires explicit, stable extension points and strong governance.
OSS should maximize time to first value, leaving coordination and scale to paid solutions.
Hosting OSS is not a differentiator; focus on unique value propositions.
Open-source raises execution bars like documentation quality and backward compatibility.
Before going open-source, ensure alignment between user and contributor personas and clear problem understanding.

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