The Business of Open Source

This week on The Business of Open Source I spoke with Andrew Martin, CEO and founder of Control Plane. 

Control Plane is ultimately a consulting company, as Andrew introduced it. But the company also created and maintains KubeSec, and also has an enterprise version of Flux CD that it licenses. That gives this conversation a slightly different flavor from the usual. 

Here’s some of the things we talked about: 

  • The business ROI that Andrew expected to get from releasing KubeSec, and whether or not he as actually seen those expected results play out
  • The difference between bootstrapping a company by offering services and by offering consulting — specifically what the difference between services and consulting is. 
  • The problem with “drive-by” feature development in open source projects — when people contribute features but don’t commit to the ongoing maintenance of the project
  • Why Control Plane decided to release an enterprise version of FluxCD, and how the enterprise version of Flux is differentiated from the pure open source project. 
  • Why underinvesting in marketing, especially in marketing for the open source projects, was a mistake

Join us at Open Source Founders Summit if you want more conversations about how companies are built around open source projects, from consultancies to large corporations. 

What is The Business of Open Source?

Whether you're a founder of an open source startup, an open source maintainer or just an open source enthusiast, join host Emily Omier as she talks to the people who work at the intersection of open source and business, from startup founders to leaders of open source giants and all the people who help open source startups grow.