Thread by @Sweet5hark

#OpenSource #libreoffice Minithread:

It always amazes me how people these days mostly seem to get that:
- NGOs don't need business models.
- #OpenSource projects don't need business models.

They also mostly get that:
- Products need business models.
- Competent contributors and companies need business models (unless the former are independently wealthy).

... but the same people fail to understand that products are not projects:
- Good products care about their non-contributing users.
- Good projects care about their contributors.

One most recent reinstallment of this fundamental misunderstanding can be found here:
sophy.ca/blog/2020/09/l…

Projects and NGOs do not care about how to become better products for users. Projects that forget their contributors over their users might not know it, but they are already dead.

Projects and NGOs need to care about their contributors. In an ideal world they care about their contributors as individuals.

The ONLY way projects have to care about users is the way their current and potential future contributors are motivated to use the output of the projects -- themselves or as proxy.

Which is why I was repeating the dogma "project over product" again and again when I handed over and left the @tdforg Board of Directors.

/end thread
/end rant

@threadreaderapp unroll please