The Life and Death of Open Source Companies

Re:The Life and Death of Open Source Companies by growse on Tuesday December 26, 2023 @02:42PM (#38775270)

> But if you "prove the market" you basically allow company-B to do what you do, literally exactly what you do, but without the development overhead.

If someone can out-compete you by simply cranking the infrastructure handle on your source-code, doesn't that indicate that you're not using your built-in advantage of owning the feature backlog well enough?

Or, put another way, if the entire value of your business is in your source code, and the only thing I need to be able to compete is your code and some commodity infrastructure, then don't give away your source code?

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Re:The Life and Death of Open Source Companies by bruce511 on Tuesday December 26, 2023 @03:38PM (#38775806)

I'm not 100% sure I understand what you mean by "owning your feature backlog."

But sure, if you dont want your staff to become your competitors then don't put tour code under a license that puts that carrot in front of them.

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Re:The Life and Death of Open Source Companies by growse on Tuesday December 26, 2023 @03:42PM (#38775831)

> I'm not 100% sure I understand what you mean by "owning your feature backlog."

If you're stewarding the project, you have the sole authority over over which features land when. You can prioritise and drag (or even reject) PRs to suit your business case and your customers. Everyone else has to accept features when you choose to release them, or fork.

This is a massive competitive advantage, if used effectively.

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