Tricking People about Open Source

Have you ever heard someone say that ‘developers hate marketing?’

The problem, I think, is that some companies can get fast and loose with the truth. More on that later, but some specific open-source-related gotchas I’ve noticed recently:

  • Calling your product “open,” or putting “open” in the product description, when it is not an open source project and your company does not have an open source project, ie we’re not talking about open core or something. —> When I read “we’re an open company” or “we’re committed to open development practices” I think, wait, do they mean they’re open source? Am I missing something? Where’s the GitHub link? … I search around a bit. Oh. Nope, just a bunch of bullshit.

  • Calling your free tier “community tier” or something. When people read community, they think, oh, this is the open source version. If it is actually the free tier, which is NOT the same, they will feel tricked.

I am the first person to say that if you don’t see a strategic reason to maintain an open source project, or you just don’t want to deal with an open core model, you shouldn’t. There is no shame in proprietary software companies, and proprietary software companies are financially successful left and right. What you should not do is try to make it sound like you are an open source company when you are not.

— PS, I am not making up these examples, but I don’t want to call out the specific companies I saw doing them. I’ve seen more than one example of both things above.

The #1 rule of marketing and sales: don’t lie. That ALSO means don’t intentionally mislead your audience.

Emily Omier