I have often wondered if the open source principles and business fundamentals come to clash with each other. I can easily convince myself that they should not, but it gets difficult to convince others. Well, no more, Matt Assay has put together a list of ten principles that the world can learn from open source (via Sam Ruby). In spite of being just another list, it answers a lot of questions about value of open source and the fear of IP. There is also a focus on the customer, to which most businesses agree, but only in principle.
The ones that truly got me are:
- Adoption precedes monetization.
- Lots of customers is a greater barrier to entry than lots of intellectual property.
- Sell customer value, not vendor value.
- Transparency breeds trust, and trust breeds revenue.
Read the entire piece, it is fascinating. Probably you will be able to build your own list.
