flâneur

The product approach to open source communities - Stack Overflow

stackoverflow.blog · 1,437 words · saved by 1 readers

A business wouldn’t take its product development for granted, so why would you neglect the OSS community that’s fundamental to the project’s very existence? Open-source communities, just like physical products or software applications, can be viewed and managed with a product-oriented approach. In fact, product management principles and strategies can better serve both the communities that support open-source software (OSS) projects and the businesses that depend on them. Let’s get one thing clear before we start: OSS communities are made up of humans—generally passionate, devoted humans at that—and should never be thought of as commodities. Rather, because they aren’t commodities, I argue that OSS community management deserves the same intentionality your organization shows to product management. A business wouldn’t take its product development for granted, so why would you neglect the OSS community that’s fundamental to the project’s very existence? The world runs on open source tech

Open-source communities, just like physical products or software applications, can be viewed and managed with a product-oriented approach. In fact, product management principles and strategies can better serve both the communities that support open-source software (OSS) projects and the businesses that depend on them. Let’s get one thing clear before we start: OSS communities are made up of humans—generally passionate, devoted humans at that—and should never be thought of as commodities. Rather, because they aren’t commodities, I argue that OSS community management deserves the same intentiona

related reading