The business behind open source

Graham Weldon• PHP developer, 10 years

• Once-was-a-java-developer

• @predominant

• http://grahamweldon.com

• Working: CakeDC

• http://cakedc.com

The primary motivator

Money

What can generate revenue?Often project specific

Indirectly

• Making money directly from open source is difficult

• Make money by operating your business along side your project

• Allow the project to grow and evolve with the community

Support

• The most obvious

• Premium support for businesses and individuals

• Utilise high speed Internet for video sessions and screen sharing

Development

• Build in and around your project, for clients

• Custom software

• Closed source (Yes, I said it)

Training

• Educate users

• Leads to better use, more contributors

• Provide courses aimed at various levels

• Again use high speed Internet to perform remotely

Certification• Might not suit all projects

• Offer professional structured testing systems to qualify users of a high standard

• Offer certification as a "badge of merit" publicly

Achievement UnlockedCertification for CakePHP 1.3

Achievement UnlockedZend Certified Engineer

Donations• Its not begging

• Method of giving back to the project for people that can't contribute

• Encourages others to donate

• Optionally allow donors to publicly list themselves

I Donated to CakePHP!

What doesn't work?Common mistakes

People code for me,for free

• Not going to happen if that's the "attitude"

• If the focus is more on your business acquiring free developers, than making a great product that will entice developers you may need to rethink your motives

• Open source != free labour

Wrong Approach

“Communities donʼt rally around closed source companies to prolong the existence of failed companies or projects”

Wrong Approach

“No-one wants to be a lackey to a commercial open source project, contributing their time to further some companies interests.”

The idea is enough• I have a great idea

• Someone will help me bring it to fruition

• This is not how to get people interested

• Everyone had great ideas

• What separates us, is some have the drive to realise those ideas

Nightingale

Examples• Nightingale http://getnightingale.com

• Ideas only

• Focused on processes and orgnaisation

• Still failing to produce anything

• No focus, no direction

Example: Xara

Examples• Xara Xtreme http://www.xaraxtreme.org/

• Initially commercial

• Wanted community help for port to Linux

• Not all the source released

• Not always an issue, but was in this case

Examples

• Xaraʼs approach

• We provided the source code

• You provide us with your developer time

• Communities donʼt work this way

Examples• Xaraʼs response

• Community complained about missing CDraw source

• Xara persisted with CDraw closed source

• Essentially telling the potential community that their concerns were wrong

• Xara is considered “stagnant” since 2008

How an open source project starts

... or more correctly,how it has always existed, and you identify it

How a project starts

• Successful projects

• Existing implementation, open up to community

• Start working on a solution to a problem

• Some application/project that motivates you

Important Milestones

• Have a product for people to download

• Roadmap to show where you want to go

• Source code from the beginning

• Simplify feedback and input mechanisms

Bootstrap

• Have “something” available

• Something useful

• Even something wrong

• Its a place to begin, and comment

Resources• Website

• Mailing List

• Bug tracker

• Wiki, or similar

• Source view / download

• Realtime Chat (IRC)

Generating interestBuilding hype

Social• Get out and talk to people about what you are

doing

• Don't be afraid to share an unpublished idea

• Get people interested

• Get feedback first hand

• User Groups

Social

• People retain interest in a topic if they can associate a real life relationship with it

• Easier to communicate complex ideas

Playing fairDon't alienate the volunteers

Money can't buy me love

• Play by the same rules as volunteers

• Motivate people to contribute through paying salaries

• Don't let that get confused with control rights

Separate the entities

• Operate the open source effort as a separate entity

• Provides visible business separation

• Gives confidence and assurance to those not working for the business

Example: CakePHP• Product: CakePHP, under MIT License

• Cake Software Foundation "owns" CakePHP

• Contributed to by a group of volunteers

• CakeDC is a commercial business that hires some of the volunteers for work on client projects

• CakeDC provides code back to CakePHP

Careful balance

• Make it known what "hat" you are wearing

• Business cannot be the key motivating factor for the projects development

• There are many ways to support a project beyond code

What Project?Choosing a project

Useful, engaging, interesting, innovative

• The project should be something useful to some business need

• You should have a personal interest in the projects goal

• Solve an existing problem, or solve an old problem in an interesting way

• Create something new

Types of projects

• CakePHP

• MySQL

• Subversion

• Linux

Community andpublic image

(it's almost "marketing"... *shudder*)

Community appeal

• Your project should fill a need that people have, and can build on.

• Allow them to take ownership of something

• Credit where credit is due

• Kudos where kudos is due

You're being watched

• The world is watching

• Don't say negative things about your competitors

• But... Benchmarks and facts are okay

Participate and engage• Visit your community

• If its larger enough, consider starting a user group

• If its going global, consider a conference

• Its difficult to measure the benefits gained from people that meet and talk about your project in person.. Almost invaluable

Communicate

• Learning to communicate effectively can be a better long term goal than programming

• A good communicator can effectively coordinate developers and manage a project

• Don't just talk lots. Learn to speak and write correctly

Communicate• Commit messages

• Social media

• Mailing lists

• Blog posts

• Documentation

Bad communication

• 1337 speak / Trendy short form

• Vague

• Aggressive

• Dismissive

Good communication

• Appreciative

• Correct punctuation

• Correct spelling

• Correct grammar

Questions, Comments?