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Open Source Software

  1. Learn Open Source Software with the Practica AI Coach

    The Practica AI Coach helps you improve in Open Source Software by using your current work challenges as opportunities to improve. The AI Coach will ask you questions, instruct you on concepts and tactics, and give you feedback as you make progress.

  2. Curated Learning Resources

    • Stratechery logo
      AWS, MongoDB, and the Economic Realities of Open Source

      Ben Thompson, Author/Founder, Stratechery

      AWS recently launched Amazon DocumentDB, a database compatible with MongoDB applications. However, AWS is not actually selling the MongoDB software but rather the performance, scalability, and availability enabled by running databases in the cloud. Open source companies like MongoDB rely on proprietary tools and support to generate revenue, but cloud providers are increasingly providing those services directly. This poses a challenge to the business models of open source companies. While open source helped fuel cloud adoption, the economic realities are such that software itself has no value due to infinite reproducibility - it is the services around software that are monetizable. This leaves open source companies in a difficult position as their tools become obsolete in a cloud-dominated world.
    • ClickHouse logo
      Strategies for open source product management

      Tanya Bragin, VP Product, ClickHouse

      Tanya discusses different types of open source projects, licenses, and governance models. She also outlines the different roles that make up an open source community, including users, contributors, customers, partners and competitors. The article then provides advice for open source product managers, emphasizing the importance of marketing through word-of-mouth, engaging existing users for feedback, and experimenting with new ideas since the software is free to use. It also stresses understanding a company's commercial goals in order to decide which features should be open source, commercial, or not introduced at all. Notably, Tanya suggests that while support and services are important, most modern successful open source companies aim for them to be less than 10% of business, focusing more on commercial distributions, features, and hosted offerings.