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Software companies have many decisions that must be taken while moving through the stages of building prosperous business. Among the many issues to be discussed whether or not its technology will be opened. It is a great decision, and the license about it Open source He receives a lot of attention in technical circles.
Part of the case is that the open source comes with many strong opinions. Whenever a large company decides to restrict its license, even if it is for good reasons, they can get a lot of reverse reaction (as Hashicorp and Flastic learned in recent years). On the other hand, the excellent technology that has been released as an open source can quickly collect a lot of support from the OSS community.
It is not easy for companies to determine the path to be followed. The Kubescape, as an open source through the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), we have chosen, we are very happy with the decision. In fact, Kubescape has recently been upgraded to embrace the project status and is used by thousands of companies worldwide. In general, we see it as a clear benefit, but we have carefully formed positives and negatives before we drowned. Certainly not something to rush to it, so I share some advice based on our experience.
Removing barriers in front of the open source adoption
Devops teams have many good reasons to be hesitant to introduce a new symbol in their groups and environments: it can be full of errors, undermining its security preparation and/or tampering with its current formations. Unless a saas solution does not require any installation based on the agent / inside the block / inside, you will need to overcome these frequencies from Devops.
Open source can help in this. It refers to transparency and accountability, and gives the teams the opportunity to inspect the code while contributing with new symbol problems or opening that makes them part of the project and gives them the ability to influence its own road map. They are likely to trust a solution that calls them to verify the basic symbol of the dream that is required to trust them in a closed box.
This confidence is amplified if you donate under your code for an institution with credibility and a vital community base with a strong “wonderful” factor. The good reputable foundation helps to verify the quality of your product and the certificate that you applied Correct review operations, Rhythms and judgment. It is better that your OSS width has already achieved a large traction, a large fixing base and a certain amount of popularity in society.
Speeding continuous improvements
Constant improvement is more than just a logo. You want to find and fix errors and improve your offer as soon as possible, and the best way to do this is to increase use. Going to the open source means that your technology is tested in the real world by much more users than you can reach through private sales.
We found that our platform was present in more than one 200,000 groups At a time when we still have dozens of institution agents only. We enabled this to recognize comments and advantages of features and verify a huge user base, so that we can learn and offer improvements more quickly.
At the same time, the adoption increased, and this is partly due to the increase in our arrival, in part that our products were improving with such a rapid rate. It is possible to use your open source community as a test environment, then issue changes in the institution’s issuance once the comments and version are combined, or vice versa. It is good that double options are operated simultaneously.
Open source means less control
These are the main advantages, but there are also defects to open the source, and it is very important to put it in mind. The main downside is that when your product is open, you cannot control how it is used for people. This is especially true if you decide to open its source through a community forum, given that you are mainly delivering your commercial signs to a neutral seller.
Despite the extensive confidence throughout the open source community, there are still some of those who will use your open source symbol and avoid your payment versions and features. (Of course, you can think about these free users as part of your sales pipeline, and work to upgrade them to the institution’s version for additional features and benefits).
There will be even some people who will take your hard work and use it to create a commercial product and earn money from your innovation and the work of the community that you built and brilliantly. You need to make your peace with this, because you cannot prevent occurrence.
The open source only works if it matches your user base
One of the main factors in the open source project report is your user base. You need to know and understand their fears and motives, so that you can predict properly how to respond to OSS’s offer. If your audience is very technical, such as security engineers, Devops and developers, they are more likely to fall into the pro -source camp.
There is a reason that a “open source society” calls. The open source is more than just a license decision: It is a set of common beliefs, with participants who exceed customers. It is closer to religion or worship than the choice of purchase. If the user base shares your love for the open source idea, this path is likely to succeed.
An open source program requires a clear liquidation model
Creating a fixed income pathway is necessary for any institution, but it is doublely important for open source companies. You should be clear about how to make your money, because the open source may leave you without a strong cash flow.
For example, you may choose to make all your technology completely open for a year, to pay the hack and comments, then provide liquefied methods. You can go Open Core, the path that my company has chosen, providing your primary symbol as an open source, then selling additional services and features on top.
Several companies decided to submit OSS and Enterprise version. This can succeed, but you need to achieve the right balance between jobs and support in the OSS version, which you only offer in exchange for customer payment. Another option is to prepare things so that the open source code can only be used with the institution’s release. The OSS version does not contain any value but show transparency. The thing that should be familiar with is that this can conflict with work with the foundation.
Once the source is opened, there is no return … a kind of
Going open source is a very heavy decision. This does not help in a street in one direction. You can move from a closed source to an open source, or from a more restricted license to a more open license, the more you want, and you will receive nothing but applause from the technology community.
But it may be very difficult to move in the other direction. All the software instructions and information that you have already have already will be available to the public forever, so that they can use it whenever I love it. As mentioned above, open source lovers can be strongly criticizing anyone who is going on their OSS offers, so it is unlikely to respect your code. Hashicorp has learned this difficult way when Terraform fans connect after it changed from NPL to BSL license.
However, the open source can be great when the conditions are correct. If you have created all factors, your user rule and providing technology, and select a respectable basis that believes in your mission, you can take advantage of a large number of advantages, as we have.
Shauli Rozen is the CEO and the founder Armao Creator kubescape.
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