What do you open source, what do you hold back?

What do you open source, what do you hold back?

⬆ That is one of the major strategic questions that open source companies have to answer — and that proprietary companies do not have to think about at all. (Note that it is certainly not the only strategic question that open source companies have to answer). You need to have a clear framework for you you make these decisions, both so you can make the decisions faster and so you can make them with a clear strategy in mind.

Matt Butcher of Fermyon wrote a great piece about this dilemma, and how they solve it / think about it at Fermyon. The piece focuses on the risk of getting ripped off by competitors (ie the reason behind the HashiCorp and Elasticsearch license changes). Butcher has basically one criteria when evaluating whether or not a bit of software should be ‘free:’ If the people benefiting from it will be users, or if the primary beneficiaries would be people who would compete with Fermyon. He gives examples. Go read the piece.

You also have to consider what you put in your open source edition and what goes in your paid edition, if you’re doing anything remotely open core-like. To make those decisions, you need a framework, too. Once you know the different USPs, user profile and core market category for your open source edition and your paid edition — and how they overlap and how they differ — it becomes much easier to see which features should be held back.