How Not to Confuse Your Open Source Community
with Your CustomersStephen R. Walli
Technical Director, Outercurve Foundation@stephenrwalli
Monday, 23 July, 12
Copyright, Stephen R. Walli, some rights reservedDistributed under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Deed
Traditional Software Business
2
Customer Pipeline
R&D
Product
Marketing
Messages
$$$
Monday, 23 July, 12
Copyright, Stephen R. Walli, some rights reservedDistributed under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Deed
Misconceptions about Community
3
Customer Pipeline
R&D
Product
MarketingMessages
$$$
Code,etc.
Com
mun
ity
Monday, 23 July, 12
Copyright, Stephen R. Walli, some rights reservedDistributed under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Deed
A Better Model for Community & Pipeline
4
Customer Pipeline
R&D
Product
Marketing
Messages
$$$
Code,etc.
Com
mun
ity
Conversations
Monday, 23 July, 12
Copyright, Stephen R. Walli, some rights reservedDistributed under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Deed
A Better Model for Community & Pipeline
5
R&D
Product
Marketing
Messages
$$$
Code,etc.
Conversations
IdentifyCustomer Awareness Download
& TryDeploy?Train?
??? Buy
Identifycommunity
What Mission?
Platform &Tools
Arch. of Participation
Code of Conduct
IPMachine
GovernanceStructure
Community members build awareness and evangelize, provide expertise and trial support, are a demonstration of solution viability, and provide great inertia around your solution
Monday, 23 July, 12
Copyright, Stephen R. Walli, some rights reservedDistributed under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Deed
What do you want to happen in Community
• Bug Reports? (Test/QA)• Code? (New Innovation, Bug Fixes)• Translations?• Forums? (Support)• Education? (Tutorials, How-to)• “Plug-in” modules? (“Partners”)
6Monday, 23 July, 12
Copyright, Stephen R. Walli, some rights reservedDistributed under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Deed
A Model for a Community Pipeline
7
R&D
Product
Marketing
Messages
$$$
Code,etc.
Conversations
Download
Install/Configure
Use/Deploy
Reporta Bug
DownloadSource Code
Build to Known State
Test to Known State
Submit aPatch
Monday, 23 July, 12
Copyright, Stephen R. Walli, some rights reservedDistributed under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Deed
Understanding Community & Customers
8
Community• Users with time but no money• Will contribute time to solve their problems • Look to community and project for solutions• Need guidance and tool support• Play by the community code of conduct• Become technology evangelists• Become knowledgeable experts
Customers• They have money but little time• They want to buy something • Look to the product to solve their problems• Community/project is a test for product • May participate in community (by the rules)
Before we had online communities around open source projects, tech communities overlapped customers much more because one needed to be a customer before one had the interest and joined the community
Monday, 23 July, 12
Copyright, Stephen R. Walli, some rights reservedDistributed under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Deed
Understanding Community and Open Source
9
Community• Users with time but no money• Will contribute time to solve their problems • Look to community and project for solutions• Need guidance and tool support• Play by the community code of conduct• Become technology evangelists • Become knowledgeable experts
Customers• They have money but little time• They want to buy something • Look to the product to solve their problems• Community/project is a test for product • May participate in community (by the rules)
Published S
oftware
Differentiated P
roduct
TraditionalClosed Company
Pure Open Source Community
Monday, 23 July, 12
Copyright, Stephen R. Walli, some rights reservedDistributed under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Deed
Understanding Community and Open Source
10
Community• Users with time but no money• Will contribute time to solve their problems • Look to community and project for solutions• Need guidance and tool support• Play by the community code of conduct• Become technology evangelists• Become knowledgeable experts
Customers• They have money but little time• They want to buy something • Look to the product to solve their problems• Community/project is a test for product • May participate in community (by the rules)
Published S
ourceP
roductThere is no requirement to build a community if you publish source code
Publishing source is a sign of strength and confidence in your customer commitment as a company
You can have a community without open source (e.g. MSDN) and you can have open source without community
Published S
oftware
Differentiated P
roduct
Monday, 23 July, 12
Copyright, Stephen R. Walli, some rights reservedDistributed under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Deed
Understanding Community & Partner Programs
11
Community• Users with time but no money• Will contribute time to solve their problems • Look to community and project for solutions• Need guidance and tool support• Play by the community code of conduct• Become technology evangelists• Become knowledgeable experts
Customers• They have money but little time• They want to buy something • Look to the product to solve their problems• Community/project is a test for product • May participate in community (by the rules)
Partners• Want to grow their business • Want to complement the product • Want to cross-sell• May join the community• MUST play by community rules
Monday, 23 July, 12
Copyright, Stephen R. Walli, some rights reservedDistributed under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Deed
Understanding Community & Foundations
12
Community• Users with time but no money• Will contribute time to solve their problems • Look to community and project for solutions• Need guidance and tool support• Play by the community code of conduct• Become technology evangelists• Become knowledgeable experts
Members• Pay to manage the roadmap• Share the cost of technology promotion • Share the cost of clear IP management• Play by the rules of membership
Members
Foundations• Create neutral non-profit collaboration space• Provide IP management and risk mitigation• Provide project management expertise• Promote the technology (marketing)• Provide business operations • Provide technical services &infrastructure
Monday, 23 July, 12
Copyright, Stephen R. Walli, some rights reservedDistributed under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Deed
A Model for Thinking about Foundations
• Neutral non-profit IP management machines• Encourage corporations to contribute and adopt
–Better provenance management–Neutral ownership–Legal governance and bylaws
• Henrik Ingo’s Observations –Foundations by the Numbers–The 9 largest open source communities versus the
10th• OpenStack and CloudStack
13Monday, 23 July, 12
Copyright, Stephen R. Walli, some rights reservedDistributed under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Deed
James Dixon’s Beekeeper Model - I
14Monday, 23 July, 12
Copyright, Stephen R. Walli, some rights reservedDistributed under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Deed
James Dixon’s Beekeeper Model - II
15Monday, 23 July, 12
Copyright, Stephen R. Walli, some rights reservedDistributed under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Deed
Matt Aslett Evolves the Beekeeper Model
16Monday, 23 July, 12
Copyright, Stephen R. Walli, some rights reservedDistributed under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Deed
The Reading List
Customers and Community http://stephesblog.blogs.com/my_weblog/2010/05/open-source-communities-and-customers-in-pictures.html
Products versus Projectshttp://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/foss-project-isn%E2%80%99t-necessarily-software-produ
James Dixon’s Beekeeper Modelhttp://jamesdixon.wordpress.com/the-bees-and-the-trees/
Henrik Ingo’s Foundation Numbershttp://openlife.cc/blogs/2010/november/how-grow-your-open-source-project-10x-and-revenues-5xhttp://openlife.cc/blogs/2012/july/cloudstack-has-proof-foundations-way-create-foss-community
Blog: Once More Unto the Breachhttp://stephesblog.blogs.com/
Twitter: @stephenrwalliEmail: [email protected]
17Monday, 23 July, 12
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FIN
18Monday, 23 July, 12
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