Does positioning matter for open source projects?

Positioning is usually presented as a business strategy, related but not the same as product/market fit. So why are we talking about it in relationship to an open source project?

First of all, some open source projects are part of a larger commercial ecosystem. If you are a startup building around an open source project or trying to monetize the open source project, it should be obvious why you need to apply business strategy not just to the thing that people pay money for, but also for the open source project.

But let’s put that aside for a minute and talk about positioning in the context of an open source project without any monetization goals. Is positioning still important?

Yes!!

Here’s the thing: With an open source project, you’re asking people to give their time. That is a different ask than asking for money, but it is still an ask. People still need to understand what value you provide, what they can expect from the project and what they should be comparing your project to. Since there’s no interaction between maintainers and potential users at the beginning of the relationship, the positioning is even more important. There is no opportunity to clear up confusion before a potential user moves on to one of the other 8 million projects.

Most open source projects have one core goal: Build a vibrant, stable community that would survive even if the original maintainers got hit by a bus, retired to Costa Rica and swore of the internet or, as is more common, decided to move on to other things. Building a community starts by figuring out the characteristics of ideal community members, what those ideal members will get out of joining the community and what they would be doing if your community didn’t exist. This is true if you are putting together a neighborhood committee or starting a book club. It is true of communities around open source projects, too. And those are the core components of positioning.

So yes, positioning matters for open source projects. If you ignore positioning for an open source project, people will decide for themselves what the best comparisons are and will make assumptions that may or may not be correct. And that could very well prevent a perfectly good open source project from getting traction and building community.

Want to learn more about positioning open source projects? Know someone with an awesome open source project who’s struggling to communicate what’s so great about it? I’m doing a free webinar on Thursday, May 27th at 9am PT. I’ll cover how positioning is relevant for OSS as well as the steps a maintainer can take to see if the project’s current positioning is a problem. Register here.