OSS.md

Table of Content

Who am I

My OSS Projects / Contributions

• Tidepool
• OpenDrive
• Boardgamers
• Pokemon Online
• HexEngine

What's Open Source

Philosophy

Check wikipedia

Notable OSS projects

• Linux
• Github (hosting)
• React, Angular, Vue
• NodeJS
• Firefox, Chromium
• Android
• LibreOffice
• MongoDB, Qt, PostgreSQL
• VS Code
• Most NPM packages
• ElasticSearch

Fears, and why you shouldn't be afraid to OSS

• Paranoia that code is stolen
• support from community
• large numbers of programmers in the world, including users

Exceptions

• Games - better not OS your game, especially if online multiplayer
• Proprietary algorithms

It's possible to OSS and make money

Working paying OSS software

• Lichess: through website
• Tidepool (full corporate): through the data
• Elasticsearch: through paid support / consulting
• SerenityOS: through sponsoring
• MongoDB: Through managed hosting (but the hosting solution is closed source)

A valid model

• Get support from the community
• Get support from developers

When to OSS?

Some examples:

• you make a tool which is not your end product (eg bootstrap, react, angular, npm modules) and do not want to maintain it all by yourself
• tools to interface with your products
• public recognition (hacktoberfest)
• Cool way to test a new tech & show off

Risks when OSSing

Need to maintain

• Example: underscore vs lodash
• It's hard to find maintainers (redis) and not fun
• No challenge - need to find motivation with community, use of new tech, ...

Split in ideology

• Node split into io
• Bitcoin core / Bitcoin cash

Licences

• GPL
• AGPL
• MIT
• UNLICENSED