This week on The Business of Open Source, I spoke with Ivan Burazin, the CEO and co-founder of Daytona. First of all, Daytona was one of the sponsors of the first edition of Open Source Founders Summit, and I had a chance to meet Ivan in person at the event. So a big thank you to him for taking a risk on the first year of the event! 

But let’s get down to business. We talked about: 

• Why Daytona took an open source approach, even though they originally started out with a pure commercial licensed software. 
• The thought that went into choosing the license — this was a great discussion, because it is a question a lot of people have. Ivan walked through his thought process in choosing a license and how he thinks about difference licenses. 
• The theory about how open source will help Daytona build their business, and the dynamics of how open source adoption leads to commercial success. 
• The importance of technical decisions in an open source project’s growth strategy.
• The different stakeholders in the community, as well as in the customer community. 

I really liked the piece when Ivan talked about the individual motivations that people might have for getting involved in a community — instead of thinking about how you get something from the community, think about how others can get something out of the community. For example, you can have someone who wants to get into technical writing who gets that experience by writing documentation for your project. Making it easier for that to happen is in everyone’s best interest. 

Like this episode? Struggling with your messaging or with your conversions from open source project to commercial customers? You might want to work with me. And if you want to join us at Open Source Founders Summit, apply to join us here.