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The Snowball Effect of Open Source

The Snowball Effect of Open Source

When contributing to Open Source projects, do you ever wonder how to get it more attention or even move it from a side project into something that is commercially available? In this session, you’ll hear about the intertwined story of two Open Source projects — Sentry and the Jinja Template engine — and how these open source projects got snowballed into the commercial world. IP rights, Business Source Licenses, challenges, lessons that can be learned looking back at more than 18 years of Open Source software development - you’ll hear it all. Added bonus is learning how to sustain a culture of support and contribution to Open Source within your own organizations.

Armin Ronacher

June 14, 2022
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Transcript

  1. The Snowball
    E
    ff
    ect of
    Open Source
    Armin @mitsuhiko Ronacher
    Sentry

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  2. Hi I’m Armin
    and I Love
    and Live
    Open Source


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  3. Armin's

    Open Source

    est. 2004

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  4. Flask, Werkzeug,
    Jinja, Twig,
    Pygments, Sphinx,
    Insta, Sentry, …

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  5. Flask, Werkzeug,
    Jinja, Twig,
    Pygments, Sphinx,
    Insta, Sentry, …

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  6. The Open Source
    Lifestyle

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  7. Direct and Open
    Communication
    Outcome Based Networking
    Con
    fl
    ict Resolution and
    Diplomacy
    International Community
    Building

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  8. How Jinja met
    Sentry — how I
    met David

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  9. 2004
    The Journey
    Begins

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  10. “Microsoft is


    bad, let's use


    Linux”

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  11. hacked around on
    phpBB for Ubuntu,
    wanted to port it to
    Python

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  12. Python didn't have
    the right tools
    an itch to scratch:

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  13. Jinja was born

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  14. 2007-03-26T17:48:20 have any of you looked into jinja?

    2007-03-26T17:51:52 zeeg: me. but i don't count ;)

    2007-03-26T17:56:38 zeeg: if you have questions fell free to poke me :)

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  15. Group Django Errors
    in a Database
    an itch to scratch:

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  16. Sentry was born

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  17. commit 3c2e87573d3bd16f61cf08fece0638cc47a4fc22 (HEAD)

    Author: David Cramer

    Date: Mon May 12 16:26:19 2008 +0000


    initial working code

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  18. independent
    projects, not
    much in common,
    but we kept
    crossing paths

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  19. went to the same
    conferences

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  20. used by the same
    communities

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  21. similar licensing
    ideas

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  22. endurance and
    perseverance

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  23. adjusting to
    change

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  24. I expected Jinja to
    die a long time ago

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  25. Projects adjust to
    new environments

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  26. JavaScript changed
    things

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  27. Licensing
    Matters

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  28. You can't force people to
    contribute back

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  29. Do you want people to
    walk away?

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  30. I want everybody

    to use it

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  31. A license is only as good
    as your enforcement

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  32. Non Monetary
    Payo
    ff
    s

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  33. got my
    fi
    rst job
    via Open Source

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  34. I found
    international
    relationships via
    Open Source

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  35. Sentry got its
    fi
    rst customers
    via Open Source

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  36. Sentry bene
    fi
    ts
    and shares
    contributions to
    core technologies

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  37. Money Matters

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  38. maybe you need a
    business model and
    revenue stream

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  39. not every Open Source
    project must make money,
    but make that call early

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  40. services are easier to
    monetize, libraries need
    subsiziding

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  41. consider license
    restrictions to stay true to
    your goals.

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  42. Open Source in
    Companies

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  43. some things take a lot of
    effort, and many folks
    need to do it

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  44. There are benefits to
    collaboration, and very
    few risks to a business

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  45. Take a bold step and
    Open Source internal tech
    and start collaborating

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  46. Want to talk /
    questions?


    twitter.com/@mitsuhiko

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