Who cares about positioning open source projects?

If you have an open source project and you care about it growing, gaining new users and being sustainable over the long term, you should care about positioning the project well. Not all open source projects are created with growth in mind, and if you don’t care much about growth, positioning can safely be ignored.

But who definitely should care about positioning when we’re talking about pure free open source projects?

Founders of open source startups. If you’re building a company that’s tightly coupled to an open source project, the short and long-term success of the project is critical to the company’s success. You should care about positioning the project well just as much as you care about positioning the commercial product — and recognize that the project and product have to be positioned differently.

OSPO leaders. Making a company’s open source projects a success is a core part of many OSPO’s role. If that is the case, they should pay close attention to making sure each project is positioned a well as possible.

Maintainers with a long-term plan for the project. Even if you’re not sure that an open source startup is in the future, if you’re serious about building an open source project that grows, becomes a serious professional calling card and is sustainable for the long run, you should pay attention to how the project is positioned.

The bottom line is that the moment an open source project becomes even a serious side hustle, you should pay attention to how it’s positioned.