Recent content on Dieter's blog
The most common question founders ask me is “What’s your opinion on rug-pulls and license changes?” My answer is that community backlash and controversy are often exaggerated, that license changes are not automatically bad, and that they should be used for the occasional harmonious re-calibration. So let’s look at relicensing, why it makes sense, when it goes wrong, and how…
I’ve been an enthusiastic contributor in the Open Source community for over 25 years. During my career, I’ve worked with and on Open Source software from multiple angles: as a builder, user, seller, customer, and investor. I’ve seen projects grow and falter. I’ve seen how licensing and business decisions can both destroy or boost projects and their communities. Though the…
TLDR: A software engineer with a dream, undertook the world’s most advanced personal trainer course. Despite being the odd duck amongst professional athletes, coaches, and body builders, graduated top of class, and is now starting a mission to build a free and open source fitness platform to power next-gen fitness apps and a wikiPedia-style public service. But he needs your help! The fitness…
What is the definition of “Open Source”? There’s been no shortage of contention on what “Open Source software” means. Two instances that stand out to me personally are ElasticSearch’s “Doubling down on Open” and Scott Chacon’s “public on GitHub” . I’ve been active in Open Source for 20 years and could use a refresher on its…
Building businesses based on an Open Source project is like balancing a solar system. Like the sun is the center of our own little universe, powering life on the planets which revolve around it in a brittle, yet tremendously powerful astrophysical equilibrium; so is the relationship between a thriving open source project, with a community, one or more vendors and their commercially supported…