Brian looks at the recent changes in open source licensing, as it relates to managed cloud offerings, and how the perception of end-users towards free software vs. cloud services is changing.
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SHOW NOTES
THINGS WE KNOW
- Open Source has become a mainstream source for innovation - with most of the Internet being built on OSS technologies (in some way or form)
- Open Source is more widely used in the Enterprise (than in the past), beyond just Linux
- Open Source is often the de facto choice for much of the public cloud (OS, VMs, DBs, etc.)
- The need for a “free” experience is expected for anything new in software or cloud, whether that’s for any/all usage, or a fixed period of time.
- “Open core”, or other variations on free OSS + non OSS (non-free) features has been a concept for quite a while.
- Community driven development does bring a broad set of perspectives, and it distributes the workload across engineers, companies, etc.
- Plenty of successful projects have been both Open Source and primarily driven by a single company (especially in the data-centric projects)
THINGS THAT WILL EVOLVE
- Where does the value of software come from? Does it come from the features, from the distribution, from the creator(s), or from how it is run?
- Do customers value ‘free”, or “stability” or “customizability” (features) or “operationalization”?
- How much of an advantage or disadvantage (or neutral) is the OSS companies offering cloud services across clouds?
UNKNOWNS AND UNCERTAINTIES
- How will the VC community view the changes in competitive landscape and licensing? How does it impact their future funding models?
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