the business case for open source

Oliver SteeleMay 4, 2005

The Business Case for Open Source

Contribution Status

Metrics Contributors Contributions Related projects

2

33Laszlo Systems, Inc.

Customer value: Closed-source model

! Value of a customer:

! Revenue

! Market feedback

! Reference

! Closed source model: conversion is a bottleneck for value

! Review – prospects may not say why they stopped the eval, especially inan unguided evaluation

! Reference – Only customers are referenceable


User value: Open-source model

! Open source distinguishes between users and customers

! Open source model:

! Revenue: open source model increases the pool of evaluators, length oftime during which a prospect can convert – but decreases chance that anyindividual prospect will convert

! Review: non-customers and unfunded developers provide a larger pool formarket feedback feedback

! Reference: Referenceable users > referenceable customers

! Other values of increased user base

! External contributions

! External evangelism


User contributions

! Positive feedback loops increase pool size for conversion

! Increased market feedback

! More developers – remove revenue conversion as a bottleneck for marketfeedback

! Grain of salt – sampling bias from nonpaying customers

! Increased marketing

! External contributors have an interest in the success of the project

! External marketing contributions are more credible than internal marcom

! Removal of revenue conversion as a bottleneck for deployments


Contribution Sequence

Marketing

Contributions

Development

Contributions

Program management

Event organization

Event participation

Books

Technical articles

!White papers

!References*

!Demos

Market feedback*

!Public response*

!Blog postings

Project management

Technical leadership

Feature design

Feature implementation

Feature review

Code review

! Vendor integration

! Component contributions

! Bug fixes

! Bug fix verification

! Bug reporting

Degre

e o

f engagem

ent

* Referenceable applications, market feedback, and effective response to public critiques

can’t effectively be accomplished in-house even with infinite resources.


Development Resources

! Activities above the line support activities below the line

! Closed development requires direct funding of activities below

the line

! Open development requires (less) funding of activities above

the line

! Bold items are active


Enabling Contributors

Marketing

! Program management

! Incentive programs

! Collateral

! Data sheets

! Logo program

! Promotion

! Articles

! Blog entries

! Applications

Development

! Project management

! Technical leadership

! Incentive programs

! Community infrastructure

! ! Mailing lists

! ! Wiki

! Code exchange

! Recipe exchange

! Build infrastructure

! Test infrastructure


Proposed Contribution Metrics

! Downloads

! Forum activity (posters, new posters, posts)

! Mailing list activity (posters, new posters, posts)

! Site traffic (ol, laszlo, and a representative project)

! Technorati traffic

! Google

! Contributors

! Contributions

! External bug reporters

! External bug reports


Proposed Next Steps

! Define adoption & contribution metrics

! Create community site! Component exchange

! Searchable, commentable documentation

! Regular news and announcements

! Remove development barriers! Build system

! Test system

! Directory structure

! Facilitate marketing contributions! Describe platform features on web site

! Publicize commercial and non-commercial successes

! Create logo/branding program (if we can iron out the issues)

Risks

Cannibalizing paid support Expenses (managing, enabling external developers)* Distraction

11

* Although, many of these expenses are the same as those necessary to competently manage and enable internal developers too.

the business case for open source

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