Open Source Founders Need Community

Whenever another open source company moves to a source-available license, there is inevitably discussion about whether or not this means the end of open source companies.

One more big infrastructure company changing its licensing structure doesn’t, in our opinion, mean open source companies are all destined to change licenses or die. But it does highlight the fact that open source companies face some challenges that are unique; they also have opportunities that proprietary companies can’t take advantage of.

If, as a community, we value the continued success of open source businesses in the sense that they continue to be fully open source and that they are financially successful for founders and shareholders, we need to make it easier for leaders of open source companies to share best practices, create resources specific for open source businesses and simply celebrate and commiserate together. Building a company is always hard, and building an open source company that is simultaneously a technical, community and financial success is even more complicated.

We created Open Source Founders Summit as a way to facilitate this knowledge-sharing, and ultimately to increase the chances that the leaders of open source companies are able to build financially successful and sustainable businesses.

If we’re all about community, why do we struggle to create it for ourselves?

If you’re running a business of any kind, chances are you know people who work in the same industry. You talk to your customers, you talk to your competitors, and you have a network of industry contacts and partners. If you’re a startup, you might belong to a number of founder communities organized by different investors. You might be part of a cohort that went through an accelerator or incubator program.

But for most open source founders, these groups are full of people who do not have any experience with open source companies. They don’t understand the specific challenges of building an open source business and aren’t useful resources when it comes to making any decision that relates to being an open source company.

They often fundamentally misunderstand business models around open source in general and almost certainly don’t understand the specifics of your business.

It’s not that you need specialized open source experience for every aspect of running an open source company. Cap tables are not fundamentally different in an open source business than in a straight proprietary software company. No matter what kind of business you have, some of the biggest risks come from either co-founder problems or hiring the wrong people. But when it comes to things like figuring out your pricing strategy, managing your project roadmap and your product roadmap, deciding on and executing a go-to-market strategy and in general balancing the challenge of building a great open source project with creating a financially viable business — you really need input from people who actually understand open source businesses.

A Conference for Open Source Founders

But what about the open source community? Leaders of open source companies often see themselves as part of the open source community, but an open source user, or even an open source developer, is not going to understand or care about conversations about go-to-market strategy or unit economics or the appropriate pricing strategy for your particular company. Open source founders are a small minority of open source developers; just like they are a small minority of company founders.

So open source founders end up straddling the open source community and the community of business founders but often don’t have anyone to turn to for the many challenges that arise from being at the intersection of open source and business. That is bad for the ecosystem of open source businesses, because we lose the knowledge that individual leaders have gained over the years of building their businesses, and also because founders who feel isolated are more likely to burn out. And strong, financially successful open source companies led by people who feel supported and like they are part of a community that understand the journey they’re on is also good for the long-term health of the open source ecosystem.

This is why we thought it was time to create a business-focused event for leaders of open source companies. If you agree that leaders of open source businesses need to work together, share their experiences and support each other, you should join us.

The initial Open Source Founders Summit will be held May 27-29 in Paris.