Open Source Research

Open Source Evaluation Workshop

What this is

A 2-hour guided conversation designed to stress-test the commercial viability of an open source project. Not a checklist — a structured investigation. The goal is to surface the assumptions you're making about sustainability and determine whether they hold.

This workshop works whether you're considering open-sourcing an existing project, evaluating whether to build a business around one, or trying to understand why your current model isn't working.

Who should be in the room

The people who make decisions about the project's direction. Someone technical who understands the codebase and licensing. And the honesty to answer questions you'd rather avoid.

Agenda

Part 1: The killed business model (30 minutes)

Open source kills the basic business model of selling software. If you don't understand what it structurally removes, you'll build plans on assumptions that are already dead.

This section maps your revenue sources and tests whether they depend on exclusive access to the code, exclusive knowledge (which diffuses over time), or something genuinely defensible. Most teams discover their model is more fragile than they thought.

Part 2: The Linux test (30 minutes)

Linux is the proof that open source can sustain itself at scale. But the conditions that made it work — procurement bypass, GPL copyleft, scope that prevents forking, a singular governance model — are so specific that they tell you very little about your project.

This section tests your project against the conditions that actually drive open source sustainability: criticality threshold, free-rider dynamics, and fork vulnerability. The question isn't "can open source work?" — it's "can open source work for you?"

Part 3: Defence strategy (30 minutes)

Companies that survive in open source do so by reintroducing scarcity — through trademarks, certifications, open core models, dependency economics, or other structural advantages. There are ten known defence strategies.

This section scores your project against each one: what you have, what you could build, and what's unavailable to you. The key question: what is your thing that isn't open?

Part 4: The honest assessment (30 minutes)

The part most workshops skip. Where will this project be in five years if current trends continue? What's the most likely failure mode? And the question nobody wants to ask: is open source the right licence model for this project at all?

What you walk away with

By the end of the workshop, you'll have:

  1. A clear picture of which business model assumptions are already dead
  2. An honest assessment of whether your project can cross the criticality threshold
  3. A defence scorecard — which strategies you have, which you could build, and which you're unwilling to use
  4. A named failure mode and a specific action to address it — or the acknowledgement that open source may not be the right model

The uncomfortable truth: many projects that go through this exercise discover they don't have a sustainable model. That's not a failure of the workshop. That's the workshop working.

Get in touch

This conversation works best with a facilitator who isn't emotionally invested in the project. The questions are designed to surface uncomfortable truths, and the people closest to the project are the least likely to volunteer them.

If you'd like to run this workshop, get in touch.

Further reading