Tag: Evergreen
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Is commercial open source the right choice for your startup?
I’ll be on a panel at the UC Open Summit 2026 in a few hours. The moderator carved out for me the question: When should you make a COSS play? (She really liked that phrasing.) Here is my panel-size soundbite: The term “commercial open source” was coined as a marketing term by Clint Oram of…
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How to talk about open source without making a mess
Based on years of experience, and a fair bit of frustration, I have some recommendations about choice of words for journalists when writing about open-source software and its role in running data centers and enabling digital sovereignty. Open-source software vs. open source solution. This is the big one. Software is an artifact (code) and a…
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Europe’s AI opportunity: Unbiased foundation models
This MIT Technology Review article on “open source AI” argues that Chinese companies, with governmental backing, are embracing an open source approach to AI. They don’t, it is typically only open models that are being provided, not full-blown open source AIs. However, the story is appealing. Still the underdog when compared with the US, China…
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The new closed complement to commercial open-source software
Commercial open source firms make money by selling something that they don’t give away for free. If you’ve been following my writing or even attended my open source business workshop you know that I’ve been calling what companies sell the closed complement. Closed, because customers don’t get it for free, and complement, because it somehow…
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The quotable guide to “why contribute to open source projects”
I provided the following quotes to the Open Logistics Foundation’s member magazine, where they were published in German and in somewhat modified form. Here are the original quotes. Managing your dependencies “Using an open source component creates a dependency on that component. If this dependency is important, the most effective way to manage the dependency…
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Options to have your open-source software and sustain it too
I’m just off a call with a public official discussing their options for an open source future. The topic was the domain-specific software needed by any agency, institution, or government (not generic office or infrastructure software). How to have software for managing health insurance, or school planning, or public transport to be open-source software? At…