Sovereign Lumber

Two talks that stood out for me at 2024 Open Source Experience conference in December were by Emily Omier, with the software analogy to lumber and chairs, and by Jutta Horstmann on software sovereignty in Europe being more urgent than ever. These connected strongly in my mind, and hit at the essence of what’s missing in the open source ecosystem today. Lumber and chairs First the analogy, briefly: Software itself (code, which may be open-source) is like lumber. It’s a product, used to make other products for consumers. The product for consumers is more than code. It’s ready-to-use well-maintained software, which may includes nice packaging or installation help, support, services, seamless upgrades, SLAs, compliance contracts, customizations, white-glove onboarding, etc. That is analogous to chairs. The talk went on to a point about publishing lumber and selling chairs, which may work for some businesses selling products based on open-source software. During Q&A, a question came ... Read full article.