Should I open source this code?
summary
Provides a practical decision framework: first confirm legal and business clearance, then map personal and organizational goals (hiring, collaboration, testing, skills), estimate time commitment and maintenance horizon, and check uniqueness versus existing projects like OpenTelemetry. Defines concrete success metrics (for example hire 50 new engineers by January 1st), plans an exit (donate to a foundation or recruit maintainers), and warns that many home projects fail when maintainers abandon them.
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chapters (10)
- 0:00Introduction to open sourcing
- 1:54Legal ability to open source
- 4:02Defining personal and organizational goals
- 10:49Aligning projects with goals
- 13:37Time commitment and maintenance
- 16:26Uniqueness of the project
- 19:18Defining success metrics
- 22:26Planning the project’s end game
- 25:37Should you open source this code?
- 27:00Q&A session
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