Speaker
Description
When proprietary products are discontinued or bought up by competitors, your own (decision-making) freedom can quickly become precarious. A discontinued product forces you to migrate, incurs costs, and imposes unwelcome decisions.
Not so with open source software: it offers me the freedom to develop the code further at any time, either on my own or with new partners, and to set up new support chains. The freedom not to have to migrate and the freedom not to have to work with an unpleasant service provider. Even drastic changes in product and business strategy can be avoided by taking matters into your own hands.
At least that's the theory. But does it work in practice?
This report is about a very recent case: about software that wasn't supposed to die, and a team that absolutely wanted to continue. It also shows where theory meets practice and the headwinds you have to face when you just go for it. But: a community has to do what a community has to do. And that can also mean: let's fork!
