How to use and develop open-source products to achieve financial and personal success
Published at Jun 25, 2023
TL;DR
Using and developing open-source is like investing in yourself. This article gives you a mindset — my mindset — for developing open-source products. The core idea in this article is that the current digital economy is stuck in some kind of premature capitalism (what some refer to as post-capitalism) where companies focus on monopolies and their competition. The following article describes how using and simultaneously contributing to open-source software can offer a way out into a more mature capitalism that is aligned with democratic values. Open-source values are put into context with stoicism, standard business values, and personal well-being.
The Digital Economy
As we observe the digital economy, it is clearly seen that the economy is governed by a few big players. Some people, like Peter Thiel argue that this is the desired state for a company in capitalism. But I am not sure about it. Through a project, I started in university, called Lean Drug Development, I was eager to explore how a company can work that is not focused on achieving and maintaining a monopoly.
I failed many times (can’t count), but I stuck to that core belief that freedom, and ownership can walk hand-in-hand with capitalism. More, those values need to walk hand-in-hand with capitalism. This led me to the conclusion that we are stuck in some kind of premature capitalism, where many companies don’t focus on the core capitalistic beliefs of value generation and creation and especially ownership.
In my belief, open-source software gives us these values by default and can thus create companies that are truly capitalistic by focusing solely on providing and generating value.
Companies with an open-source mindset not only accept the fact that competition is necessary, no, they embrace it, they feed it. They see their competition as beneficial to them. Companies with truly capitalistic value focus entirely on their customers and only for the sake of their customers they would even look at their competition.
The tax perspective
Imagine you pay taxes (I know that’s hard for some entrepreneurs, especially if they are starting out), but if you do, you pay for open-source developments like Debian or developments from universities.
Now imagine from your income you buy then a commercial product, which you use. Your data is then used to improve that commercial product. This means you work for the company you bought the product from (hidden tax). That company is also very likely to evade tax in your country. As a result, you paid for software multiple times, but you don’t symmetrically contribute to the improvement of the open-source product.
If you just use the open-source product, you skip paying and improving a company that acts commercially and foremost in their interests.
On the other hand, with open-source, you use a product that you already paid for anyway and keep improving it such that you can use a better product the next year. And also for that you already paid. The result is, that you only use what you paid for.
The karmic perspective
What we do to others and our environment, is usually mirrored in what happens to us. So if you want to be treated peacefully, it is best to treat others peacefully. If you are trying to rip someone off their hard-earned dollars, something will create scarcity in some area of your life.
The conclusion is for business. If you give away something, you will receive something. That is basically how trade works anyway. Yet, the intention (as outlined above) of how you do it decides whether you can create value for yourself. You will only create value for yourself if you create value for others. A good way to do it, is to publish and develop and use open-source software.
The business perspective
From the business perspective, open-source creates trust. Everyone can audit your software, everyone can test your software. You got nothing to hide. These are signs that you are highly trustworthy, and it is worthwhile engaging with you and your business.
People can assess the quality of your work and see how many other people are using your software. Maybe they can see that even you yourself are using your software to build your success.
Open-source allows you to freely solve problems without being restricted by proprietary licences. This way, you can do whatever is necessary to provide value to your client. By using open-source software yourself, you also improve the products you are using, without paying for that work (in commercial products you pay for the product and the improvement based on your usage. You essentially do free work / are paying to work). On the contrary, you are rewarded by higher-quality products.
Thus, open source creates trust and value in business. Some of that value creation is even passive.
Not only that, you immediately dissolve any monopoly you are having by bringing an innovation to the market. Everyone can use it. So there is healthy competition. You can skip all the unnecessary stuff, like patents, lawsuits, whatever and completely focus on providing value. 80/20 rule applied!
The value perspective
Value-based actions are a great. They keep us happy. From the value system, using and simultaneously developing open-source software is stoic and also aligns with Kriya-Yoga practices. What kleshas are in Yoga, passions are in stoicism. They are a similar concept, however not all kleshas are passions. I know since I am going to school, the Yogi influence is strong, so this article rather uses the humanist perspective from the Stoa.
In stoicism, the passions are polar and opposite (good vs. evil). Whereas the first pair is about the future and the second pair is about the present.
Lust vs. Fear
Delight vs. Distress
I found that contributing open-source and simultaneously using open-source helps with all the passions in the business context.
Lust
Lust is an irrational desire, or pursuit of an expected goodbut in reality bad.
It can be, for example, that you get obscenely rich by tying your customers in shackles if they are starting to use your product, e.g. by making them addicted.
As you are open-source now, everyone could do it and your competition can outsmart your ways of making people addicted. You can easily realize now that true value lies in enabling people and offering them ownership. This way you can finally start to focus on great quality and minimalistic yet useful feature sets.
Not only will it ease your mind, but it will make you more respected and influential as people appreciate your work. You are becoming a valuable part of the digital community and, thus, our modern society.
Fear
Fear is an irrational aversion, or avoidance of an expected danger.
I observe it in many clients, they are afraid. Let’s first investigate the what, and then the why.
What are tech entrepreneurs afraid of?
Or, let’s say, what can tech entrepreneurs be afraid of? I realize in my client’s typical fears of being “robbed of their idea” or be afraid of the competition. What if they fail? What if their idea is slapped by the market, or OpenAI just implements their startup as a feature? You get it. They are coming with all sorts of NDAs and patents and whatever contracts to make sure “their idea” is sold solely by them, not realizing that they are stuck in a viscous cycle.
It’s obvious that the way out of the vicious cycle is acting the perfect opposite way, right? That’s by coincidence, one of the most useful Sutras introduced by Patanjali to control unpleasant or negative thoughts. Thinking the opposite when troubled with harmful thoughts. This current thought leads us to the why.
Why are tech entrepreneurs afraid?
Fear is most often triggered by a psychological construct. Yogis refer to as the ego. And you know what that is. I used to think having a big ego is the prerequisite to being successful. But the reality was, only when I started to let go of it, my trajectory began to become positive. How? Because I was just doing it. You remember?
I wasn’t concerned about how much money I make on a client anymore. I just became the problem solver I was before getting paid for it. A client came, and I solved their problem. Somewhere on the way, I wrote a bill, and they would come back.
And here is where the ego interferes. You can call it entitlement or something else. But the ego is fake. And it knows it. So it always has to be afraid. When you now act based on your entitlement, you will most likely come up with a business model that is harmful for your clients. And hell yes, everyone would be afraid to sell that. So do yourself a favour and just do it.
Open-source mindsets can guide you on a path where you can follow useful business models and practices for your clients, like offering them ownership, while still creating a slick product.
Delight
Delight is an irrational swelling, or a fresh opinion that something good is present, at which people think it right to be elated.
Oh, your idea is great, it’s the best and all those fancy gadgets you are going to outperform your competition with it. And all those articles: The Solopreneur running Million-Dollar businesses on Upwork. But you guessed it, overhyped stuff seldomly generates you a lot of revenue. It’s time to step back and really sort out — what can be beneficial to you and your business and, most importantly, how can you create true value? Open-source lets you focus on what matters — value for your clients. If you share your code freely, it is entirely up to you how you create value for your clients. You have complete ownership over your products and business.
I am not saying everyone is selling you bs, and you can’t trust any advertisement. No! Marketing is necessary. But please be real, and stay to the facts when you do it. And please spot if someone else is trying to misguide you.
Distress
Disstress is an irrational contraction, or a fresh opinion that something bad is present, at which people think it right to be depressed.
Even if it is true that people may hurt you or harm you, it makes absolutely no sense to assume that it is going to happen. If it happens, you just let it happen and deal with it afterwards. Not all stuff is always good or always bad. Sometimes things you thought that might be bad turn out to be good.
Keep experimenting and your mind open. Open-source lets you pivot easily as your business does not depend on the software you are building or “your idea”, but only that you provide value.
Oh, you don’t have 99.9% uptime because your cat bit your internet cable? But does it hurt you? If you are running a business in a federated manner, it is not relevant. Your little server will most likely not host millions of users, as they would rather run their own server. Maybe that downtime does not justify overpaying a hosted solution somewhere else? I don’t know! You have to do the numbers yourself. Perhaps you learned something from the downtime you can then successfully apply to solve a problem for your next client? Go for it.
Conclusion
Of course, not all sides of open-source are only positive. But if applied with a good mindset, open-source can bring you many benefits. However, ownership and freedom are core values to many people, especially entrepreneurs. Thus, building and using products that transport those values will in numerous instances create value for that target group.
So long, and thanks for all the fish, support, and your attention. I am giving my best, to let you participate and show you new ways of doing business and using technology. ⛵️ If you find it useful, please clap-clap and follow me 💪
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