Tag: Evergreen
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Paid vs. volunteer open source work in China 1 / 3
In 2014 we published a study on paid vs. volunteer work in open source, using a representative sample of open source projects from 2008 (i.e. before GitHub). In 2008, open source activity was decidedly Western, with little contributions from China. In 2017, I finally found a student to redo the analysis for China. More specifically,…
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The challenge of product management in commercial open source
Open source is a viable business strategy for software vendors to disrupt existing markets and conquer new ones. Just why is it easy in some markets and hard in others? I argue that you need to cut the product in such a way that there is a clear separation between what a never-paying community-user wants…
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The cardinal sin of commercial open source?
Redis is a popular open source database. Its proprietor, Redis Labs, recently announced that some add-on modules will not be open source any longer. The resulting outcry led to a defense and explanation of this decision that is telling. I have two comments and a lesson about product management of commercial open source. The two…
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Microservices vs. inner source
I just listened to Eberhard Wolff’s BED-Con talk on microservice-based system architectures, which he prefers to call Independent Systems Architectures (ISA). One purpose of calling it ISA is to emphasize that there should be no common data model and no shared reusable libraries between microservices. Obviously, by discounting reuse, ISA may increase development speed short-term…
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The 120 seconds open source pitch
I often have to “sell open source” and the pitch for this is ever changing. Here is the current one; it stands at 120 seconds and is aimed at the German Mittelstand. Any feedback is appreciated! “Software is eating the world” says a Silicon Valley venture capitalist. This is not just American hyberbole. Not only…
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Reasons for why companies are getting serious about open source licenses 1/4
The times are changing: More and more companies are finally taking stock of the open source code embedded in their products. The main driver is to be (finally) compliant with the requirements of the licenses of the open source code. I see three main reasons for why companies are finally shaping up: Occasionally, due diligence…