Herd immunity, the tech version

When open-source gets mentioned, it’s often assumed that the benefit is for the technically-minded, the people writing the code. That you only get something out of it if you roll up your sleeves.

This is not the case.

When you adopt a widely-used open tool, tons of other organisations are keeping it alive too. They’re funding the development, finding the bugs, adding or requesting features,… You ride along “for free” (more about this in a later email), benefiting from a scale you couldn’t possibly pay for alone.

Compare this to some small proprietary tool you found that does exactly what you need. It’s great … until you realise you’re only one of a few customers keeping it alive. If or when that tool maker gets bored, runs out of cash, or pivots to some “AI-powered” solution, you’re suddenly on your own with no migration path and another “end of our incredible journey” email giving you 30 days (if you’re lucky).

There’s safety in numbers. And if those numbers have already done the vetting and maintenance for you, you’ve got leverage there.

When choosing tools and they’re close on features, check the communities behind them. The one with the larger open community has scale that will usually work in your favour.

Colin