Exploring open source in business
The growth of open source methodology as a successful process for software development, content creation, and hardware engineering is one of the best technological stories of the 21st Century. Merging those creative processes successfully with business practices has, at times, proven to be challenging, but by no means impossible.
The Open Source in Business webinar series intends to bridge this gap by providing a vendor-neutral forum to discuss the business of open source. The series will examine companies who release software as open source and make money by using that software, rather than by selling it. Participants will hear from services companies that have grown organically by specializing in support and solutions around niche open source projects. Sessions will explore how successful consortia help define and grow a marketplace around popular open source projects. Venture capital partners will share what they look for in successful high-growth businesses, and how open source can play a role in those companies.
Join us for interactive sessions and discussions that explore the inflection point between open source and business, and discover how success in open source business happens.
Next episode: Why I won’t start a company around Envoy
Time: December 1st, 2020, 8:30pm CET/2:30pm EST/11:30am PST
Featured speaker: Matt Klein
Featured host: Matt Asay
We are taking a week off for US Thanksgiving, and returning on December 1st with Matt Asay interviewing Matt Klein about his decision not to create a company around his very successful and popular project, Envoy.
Many successful open source projects are created internally to solve problems for a large company. Of these successful projects, several project founders decide to start companies around the commercialization of the project. But there are also project founders who consciously decide not to go that route.
Matt Klein, a software engineer with Lyft, wrote Envoy to scratch a proverbial itch, to solve some of the problems of running scalable distributed applications. After the project was open sourced in 2016, it has had huge influence and traction, including being adopted by the service mesh platform Istio.
In this episode, Matt will chat with guest host Matt Asay about some of the reasons why he has chosen not to strike out on his own and attempt to create a service mesh business around his project.
Watch our last episode on demand: The Reinvention of the Eclipse Foundation
Time: November 17th, 2020, 5pm CET/11am EST/8am PST
Featured speaker: Mike Milinkovich
Featured host: Stephen Walli
The Eclipse Project was originally released in 2001, and led to the creation of the Eclipse Foundation in 2004. Over the course of its history, the Foundation has broadened its scope beyond the original Eclipse IDE to include a broad range of developer tools, working groups, and now hosts over 350 open source projects. It has also been successful in attracting a diverse set of member companies and individuals.
The Foundation leadership announced in May 2020 that it planned to become a Belgian non-profit, moving its home from the US to Europe. In this episode, the Eclipse Foundation Mike Milinkovich will join guest host Stephen Walli to discuss the historical and evolving role of the Eclipse Foundation, the motivations for moving to Europe now, and where he sees the Foundation going in the future.
All of our past episodes are listed on the event schedule page, and are also available on our YouTube channel.