« RoboWife revisted | Main | Google goes video »
January 25, 2005
A personal view of "Open Source Business"
The Open Source business conference will take place in San Francisco on April 5th and 6th. Here's a blurb from the press release:
OSBC is a unique venue for gaining insights from the leaders in open source and business. Where do the top venture capitalists see the biggest market opportunities? What is Microsofts evolving strategy around open source? After SCO, where do legal authorities see risks in open source software and how can your firm best prepare?
Well, that certainly sounds "interesting". We have all the right buzzwords in less than a paragraph, don't we. The lineup of keynote speakers is also worth taking a look at (I'm not going to pick on anyone particular - but if you take a look you'll see what I mean).
Of course I'm just pissed they didn't ask me..but still it seems a no brainer to imagine what those people will be talking about. Anyway, if I was speaking at an Open Source conference about business - I would want to tell a story - and this is how it goes:
- 2000 - Convincing my employer (a software services company) to set up an Open Source group to generate additional business
- 2001 - Trying to talking to large corporate customers about using Open Source for their applications and being told to "come back when you have something sensible to talk about" (and I rephrased that).
- 2001 - Trying to gain acceptance in Open Source projects as a business entity - and winning
- 2001 - Getting calls from companies wanting support for Open Source projects they were using and how they hung up when we told them what it would cost "why does your support cost money - the Open Source software is free"
- 2002 - Attending a large conference in Germany, taking part in a panel discussion and being told in public by someone from a large software product vendor: "Open source will never make it - companies need someone to sue"
- 2003 - Finding out which business models work in an Open Source context - and which don't (I still have the scars)
- 2003 - On talking to groups inside large companies that were using Open Source but too scared to tell - their managers
- 2003 - On convincing companies to come out into the open and talk about the fact that they are using Open Source
- 2003 - Working with an amazing group of companies and friends to promote Open Source in Europe
And of course all this.
Things got a lot easier for Open Source related business in 2004, but still I think there is more to it than this conference and keynote speakers will have you believe.
Posted by Matthew at January 25, 2005 09:43 AM