

Ask HN: Open-source business strategy meetup/group in the SF Bay Area? - malandrew

Choosing an open-source business model and accompanying licenses are big decisions for a startup. There's a very delicate balance between contributing code to the commons, fostering a community and being profitable, and there's no one right way to build a scalable business around open-source that doesn't devolve into a consulting and support business model that doesn't scale revenue and headcount wise and becomes a time vampire diverting engineering from building a better product.<p>With this in mind, is there a group or meetup in the SF Bay Area or an online discussion group where founders and key employees of startups using or exploring open-source business models can get together, network, get advice and bounce ideas of each other?<p>I'm doing a lot of research on this myself, but there is no substitute for talking to others who've been down this path before and have wisdom and knowledge to share.
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mjasay
It's not until April, but the best event on this topic has traditionally been
the Open Business Conference (OSBC - formerly "Open Source Business
Conference"). I'm biased, as I founded the event, but I founded it precisely
because of the dearth of information on how best to build and scale a
successful open source business. <http://www.osbc.com>.

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malandrew
I completely agree that there's a dearth of information in this space.
Unfortunately, I am in a position where I need to make licensing decisions
before April, but I'm going to keep an eye on this conference and check back
on it closer to the event to see what speakers have signed up to talk.

