Taking an existing, non-open codebase into the open is one of those tasks that seems relatively simple --- apply open source license and publish the code. In practice, however, there is some hidden complexity along the way, and many project…
No matter how tightly developers are committed to their current project hosting provider (GitHub, GitLab, GNU Savannah, or whatever), new ones will come along over time. The history of web services is replete with turnover, and project host…
Open Tech Strategies can help you migrate off of Phabricator now that it has reached end-of-life. We developed Forgerie, an open source tool that aids in migration between code forges. Forgerie extracts data from your Phabricator instance a…
(This is the seventh post in our Open Source At Large series.) Open source is a powerful tool that offers great benefits to organizations that make, maintain, or deploy software. Most teams know they need open source capabilities. The hard
(This is the sixth post in our Open Source At Large series.) One of the insider secrets of free and open source software (FOSS) is that most of the rules a project uses on a day-to-day basis are not found in the software’s license. There ar…
(This is the fifth post in our Open Source At Large series.) Last week, I spoke with the CEO of a company that makes a proprietary, category-leading workflow product. He asked me "what should we open source and when?" This is one of the mos…
(This is the fourth post in our Open Source At Large series.) All the power of open source comes from throwing in with your neighbors, even the neighbors you don't like very much. For most projects, the main reason to get involved in open s…
(This is the third post in our Open Source At Large series.) Treat this list as a menu, not a buffet. Pick three items and make them your high priority targets. Focus on effects that connect best to your strategy, and, ultimately, to your o…
(This is the second post in our Open Source At Large series.) There is a lot of documentation out there on how to do open source well at the project level. Historically, many projects have been started by developers, often on their own init…
Open Tech Strategies has a dual mission. Day to day, we help our clients understand how open source approaches fit into their strategic goals, and we help them implement those approaches. But over the long term, we also try to act at the ec…
Note: This is an updated version of an article I first wrote in 2011. The original site went offline for a while, and although it was later restored, thanks to heroic efforts by Philip Ashlock, I felt the article needed a new home, and want…
Open source is a broad term that encompasses many different types of projects. There is a wide range of open source approaches, and sometimes it helps to think through how your open source approach matches your goals, resources, and environ…