Open Source Business Conference, San Francisco, March 2004

Bernard Golden, Navica’s CEO, spoke on the “Collaborating with the Community” panel at the Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco on March 16, 2004. Here is a copy of his remarks:

It’s very appropriate that we have a panel at this conference on “Collaborating with the Community.” One of the biggest differences between commercial software and open source software is the presence and importance of the open source community. Except for the software itself, the size and quality of the community will be the key success factor for any organization implementing an open source product.

However, using the phrase “the community” is a bit misleading. There are many communities – one for each open source product. The critical challenge for an organization considering a product is to determine what that product’s community is like and to see if it is strong enough to make using the product worthwhile.

There are a number of ways to assess a product’s community that are described in Succeeding with Open Source. The first thing to determine is “how big is the community?” This can be determined by looking at the number of members for the product’s mailing list or lists. The quality of the community can be evaluated by looking at a number of mailing list postings, examining them both for content and tone. Finally, you can look at the archives to see if the total number of monthly postings is stable, growing, or diminishing.

By assessing the product’s community, you can determine whether this key resource is sufficient for your needs and whether you can succeed with the product.