The open source advantage: faster mistakes, better builds, wider buy-in

Software companies have to make many decisions if they move through the phases of building a flourishing company. One of the many topics that are to be discussed is whether they should open their technology or not. It is a big decision and the licensing Open source Receive a lot of attention in technical circles.

Part of the problem is that open source is equipped with many strong opinions. Whenever a large company decides to restrict its license, it can get a lot of counter -reactions even if it is for valid reasons (as has been learned in Hashicorp and Elastic in previous years). On the other hand, excellent technology that is published as open source can quickly receive from the open source software (OSS) Community (OSS) software (OSS).

It is not easy for companies to decide which path should go. My company decided to publish our Cloud Native Security Scanner Kubescape as an open source via the Cloud Native Computing Foundation of the Linux Foundation (CNCF), and we are extremely satisfied with the decision. In fact, Kubescape was recently promoted to incubate the project status and is used by thousands of companies worldwide. Overall, we see it as a net part, but we carefully weighed the advantages and disadvantages before we dare to jump. It is definitely not something you can rush into, so I share some advice based on our experience.

Removing obstacles for open source adoption

DevOps teams have many good reasons to bring new code into their clusters and environments: they can be full of mistakes, undermine their security system and/or cause their existing configurations. If you do not offer a solution that is completely SaaS and does not require an agent-based / in cluster / on-premium installation, you must overcome these hesitation from DevOps.

Open source can help. It signals transparency and accountability and offers teams the opportunity to inspect code, at the same time contribute new code or opening questions that make you part of the project and gives you the opportunity to influence the roadmap. It is more likely to trust a solution that invites you to check the core code than one who asks you to trust a closed box.

This trust is reinforced if you donate your code to a foundation, the credibility and a lively community base with a strong “cool” factor. A reputable foundation helps Right review processes, Caders and governance. It is even better if your OSS offer has already achieved significant traction, a large installation base and a certain popularity in the community.

Accelerate continuous improvements

The continuous improvement is more than just a slogan. You want to find and fix errors and improve your offer as soon as possible. The best way to do this is to improve the use. Going open source means that your technology is tested by far more users in the real world on the street element than you could achieve through private sales.

We found that our platform was more than in more than than available 200,000 clusters At a time when we only had several dozen corporate customers. As a result, we were able to use the feedback, the feature requests and the validation of a massive user base so that we could learn and introduce improvements faster.

At the same time, acceptance increased, partly due to our larger range and partly because our product improved at such a fast speed. It is possible to use your open source community as a test environment and then publish changes in the enterprise version as soon as you have recorded feedback and the version is stable or vice versa. It is good that the double options are carried out at the same time.

Open source means less control

These are the main advantages, but there are also disadvantages for open source, and it is important to keep an eye on them. The main disadvantage is that if your product is open source, you cannot control how people use it. This applies in particular if you decide to defeat it via a community forum, as you are essentially handing over your brands to a neutral provider foundation.

Despite the widespread trust in the open source community, there will still be some that only use your open source code and avoid your information and functions. (Of course you can and should take these free users into account as part of your sales pipeline and work on updating them on the Enterprise version for additional functions and advantages).

There will even be some people who do their hard work and use it to build a commercial product and earn money with their innovation and work of the community they have built. You have to make your peace because you cannot prevent it from happening.

Open source only works if it matches your user base

One of the main factors in the decision of open source projects is their user base. You have to know and understand your concerns and motivations so that you can correctly predict how you react to an OSS offer. If your audience is very technical, e.g. B. safety engineers, DevOps teams and developers, they are more likely to fall into the pro-open source camp.

There is a reason why we call it the “open source community”. Open source is more than just a license decision: it is a number of joint beliefs with participants who go far beyond customers. It is closer to a religion or a cult as a choice of purchase. If your user base shares your love for the idea of ​​open source, this path is with much likely success.

Open sourcing software requires a clear monetarization model

The establishment of a firm path to monetization is of crucial importance for every company, but is twice important for open source companies. You have to be aware of how you earn your money, because open source could leave you without a strong cash flow.

For example, for one year you could carry out your entire technology for one year of open source, drive penetration and feedback and then introduce monetization methods. You can open the core that is the route that my company has selected where you offer your core code as open source and then sell additional services and functions above.

Many companies decide to offer both an OSS version and an Enterprise version. This can work, but you have to be the right balance between functionality and support in the OSS version and what you only offer for paying customers. Another option is the facility so that the open source code can only be used in combination with the enterprise version. The OSS version has no value except to demonstrate transparency. However, what you are aware of is that working with a foundation can be in conflict.

As soon as you are open source, there is no longer back … somehow

Open source is a very important decision. It doesn’t help that it is pretty much a one -way street. You can switch from a closed source to open source or a more restrictive license to a more open license whenever you want, and you only get applause from the Tech community.

However, it can be very difficult to move in the other direction. All code and information you have already shared are available to the public forever so that you can use it whenever and whatever you want. And as mentioned above, open source fans can be very critical of anyone who goes back to their OSS offer, so they less respect their code. Hashicorp learned this on the hard tour when the fans gave Terraform after changing from an NPL to a BSL license.

However, open source can be great if the circumstances are correct. If you have weighed all the factors, your user base and your tech offer have been tuned in and have identified a serious foundation that believes in your mission that you can benefit from a number of advantages as we did.

Shauli Rozen is the CEO and co -founder of GRACE and the creator of Cubescape.