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12 Responses to “The Silverado Rules for Open Source Success”

1. on 25 Feb 2008 at 2:18 am   George

   Also, this
   from Wired is worth reading.
   “The rise of “freeconomics” is being driven by the underlying technologies that power the Web…”

2. on 25 Feb 2008 at 1:50 pm   Brett

   This article is written by one who is trying to justify merging proprietary models with open source models. This is also a marketing tool for WaveMaker, and inbound links are always a good thing… I don’t see this as a particularly good set of best practices at all; but rather a set of practices used in VC funded commercial entities. There a wildly successful open source projects that don’t follow this particular set of “rules”.

   I certainly would not recommend vTiger follow this set of rules.

3. on 25 Feb 2008 at 7:19 pm   Victor

   Following those rules ensures the profitability in case of a “comercial path”, or “main developers being -contracted- by a commercial oriented company.

   So i feel that the main issue is not to follow or not follow those steps, “but to preserve the original spirit of the project and team”, there is the real value.

4. on 25 Feb 2008 at 7:23 pm   Victor

   And…. in this case my vote is more for a dual Service Level strategy (paid and non paid like vtiger), than the “dual licensing model”, many of us can testify agains those dual licensing models, where the real and good features are reserved only for the paid ones.

5. on 26 Feb 2008 at 9:02 am   ckeene

   @Brett - The Silverado Rules are absolutely written for venture-backed software startups. There are many reasons to start an open source project - creating a commercial business is just one of them. The Silverado Rules encapsulate the successful business models of companies like JBoss, MySQL and SleepyCat.

   Since I have had the opportunity to talk to CEOs and board members from these companies - and since their advice was so consistent - I thought it would be useful to summarize it for the broader community. As is typical with open source, feel free to take you want from it and chuck the rest!

6. on 26 Feb 2008 at 12:21 pm   Sreenivas Kanumuru

   Brett, Victor: We do not have any intention of releasing a commercial version of vtiger CRM package. It will remain 100% open source.

   A couple of things we can draw upon from the article:

   1. “Last mile” problem - We can do better on documentation and tools
   2. Commercial growth - I have different take on this. One of the key factors for success of pure open source projects (such as Joomla for example) is the ecosystem around it. We need to foster an ecosystem where developers can create open source and commercial extensions/plug-ins on vtiger.

7. on 28 Feb 2008 at 12:48 am   Carlo

   hi all,

   it’s very nice to read some “theoretical” discussion about opensource business models here on vtiger blogs

   possibly the original article was a bit of a marketing tool, sure, but it contains points worth discussing

   yes, sreenivas, i 100% agree better documentation is a must - and stable code - but it really looks like vtiger is on the right path

   there’s a sentence in one of the comments on the original post i found very inspiring:

   “Some people are ready to spend time to save money. Others are ready to spend money to save time. That’s in my experience the main distinction between community and commercial customers.”

   ciao
   carloz

8. on 28 Feb 2008 at 1:17 am   Prasad

   Hi All,

   Thanks for sharing your view points and experience. It was a good learning session for me

   Regards,
   Prasad
   vtiger Team

9. on 08 Mar 2008 at 9:15 am   Revathi

   Cool!!!!

10. on 21 Mar 2008 at 12:28 am   N4news

    Thanks, It was very interesting to read.
    I think, that everyone should choose the model of business that is right for him.
    vTiger does the best!

11. on 16 Apr 2008 at 2:13 am   Gaurav

    Hi

    I have downloaded the Latest Vtiger and have read the installation manual as well. i am not techie but would like my team which is spread across india to use it. Can i contact Vtiger for further help in installation and help me use this CRM in my business process.

    if i could be trained on the same. it will be helpful and i will be able to keep a check on my team performance as well.

    shall be seeking a positive response from your end

12. on 16 Apr 2008 at 2:17 am   Prasad

    Hi Gaurav,

    Glad to know about vtiger in use by your team. Please feel free to contact us when you need.

    Regards,
    Prasad
    vtiger Team

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