Forem: Netanel Mohoni

New VScode extension - connecting developers with the OSS community to solve code issues in real-time

Netanel Mohoni — Wed, 06 Jan 2021 09:29:16 +0000

Learn more: https://xscode.com/vscode-extension/
Get here:https://www.producthunt.com/posts/xs-code-aces-for-vscode

Open-Source Community Growth - how we've tripled it within 5 weeks

Netanel Mohoni — Thu, 10 Sep 2020 13:27:09 +0000

As an entrepreneur, there’s nothing more exciting than achieving the goals you set. It’s not about project management, social proof, or product-market fit. It’s just the feeling that you’re doing something right. In this post, I’d like to share with you 5 milestones we’ve achieved in the last 5 weeks, how we did it and what were the results.

Read the full article here:
https://blog.xscode.com/1379/5-milestones-weve-achieved-in-5-weeks/

5 TOOLS TO SPEED UP YOUR R&D TEAM IN 2021

Netanel Mohoni — Tue, 01 Sep 2020 09:57:53 +0000

As strange as this year has been, we are already nearing the end of summer and the changes and consequences of working remotely are here to stay, at least until the first half of 2021. Here are five free tools any tech-lead can adopt to speed up the development processes and collaborate with other developers.

OpenSource - The Guaranteed Funding Program – Now Accepting New Applicants

Netanel Mohoni — Sun, 28 Jun 2020 13:04:47 +0000

At xs:code, we’ve made it our mission to connect open source developers with the software companies that use their projects. With more and more companies using xs:code to find paid solutions, support and licensing for the open source components they use – we aim to help as many open source developers discover the potential of offering paid products and services on top of their free code, and turn their open source projects into steady sources of revenue.
Read More:https://blog.xscode.com/833/the-guaranteed-funding-program-for-exceptional-open-source-projects/

What metrics would you like to see instantly when you're exploring a repo on GitHub?

Netanel Mohoni — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 09:52:50 +0000

Share what's important to you when selecting a repo, and what metrics or criterias act as a warning signal?

3 Principles to Speed Up Your Development Process with Open Source

Netanel Mohoni — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 10:00:34 +0000

Most software companies use open source components in their products in order to save time and accelerate their R&D pipeline. But open source isn’t just code. Focusing only on the code would be like driving an eight gear Ferrari while keeping it in first gear. I will discuss below what three principles you should adopt in 2020 to maximize the potential of open source in your development pipeline, so that you can get yourself into top gear.

Principle #1: Maximize Github’s potential to the fullest - Unlock copyleft licensed repositories using dual-licensing as a purchasing model

A large portion of software companies enforces strict policies preventing the use of any copyleft licensed code in their products due to the usage limitations created by those licenses. Some companies even use expensive tools and a battery of lawyers to ensure these policies are enforced company-wide. By ignoring copyleft licensed code, they are essentially ignoring a wealth of knowledge that open source has to offer. They are giving up on the opportunity to use excellent, well-maintained code, while investing a lot of time and money to write the same code themselves, or compromising with other alternatives.

Adopting dual licensing as a purchasing model can unlock millions of repositories for commercial use. The idea is to initiate a request for a paid license that is given in tandem with an existing restrictive license. The paid license can either be a custom license, or a standard open source permissive license supplied by the developer(s) behind the code. While it is true re-licensing copyleft licensed code can sometimes be challenging, there are still solutions available that can work for both the needs of the developer and your R&D pipeline.

Most of the open-source components with restrictive licenses (such as GPL) are maintained by a group of developers who are most likely looking for donations for their projects. You can offer to these maintainers an option to purchase from them a permissive license, and kill two birds with one stone: you will enjoy a well-maintained repository with a permissive license, which was unavailable for you up until now; and the maintainers are now motivated to keep maintaining it, which opens the door for more companies to purchase licenses to help keep the project going. An example of this dual license approach can be found on the very popular Vue Tables 2 project, which offers a GPL version of the code and a paid permissive license for companies.

Principle #2: Get support packages from the developers behind the code you use

The whole idea of using free software is to speed things up, so why is your team wasting over 25% of their maintenance time to deal with open source components? It’s ok to fix small issues yourself, but when it comes to more complicated problems with code that you’re not familiar with, why not simply ask for help from the developers who actually know the code like the back of their hand? Their solutions will be faster, more creative, and won’t break anything else, while your team gets to invest their focus and energy in your core business. This helps save time for your team and reduces costs for your software development. You can get support for almost any open source project and give your team the peace of mind they need. Plus, the fixes you’ll pay for will most likely be merged into the main branch, so the rest of the community will enjoy your contributions.

Principle #3: Paying for premium versions is sometimes cheaper than free code

The “open core” model (freemium) we all familiar with from the big vendors can be used for the small components as well. When you need a feature that doesn’t exist in a free repository you are using from GitHub, you can simply hire the repository’s developers to build the feature and maintain it for you. It’s a win-win situation. Your team gets customized code and the developer gets supported.

There are over 40 million open source developers out there and they are very good at what they do. By tapping into this talent pool and working directly with the creative minds behind the code, you can get things done better and faster and easily shift your team to eighth gear. The evolution of open source is here and it's time to push the pedal to the metal with your development process.

REDIS OPEN-SOURCE GRANT PROGRAM

Netanel Mohoni — Sun, 24 May 2020 16:43:19 +0000

“In real open source, you have the right to control your own destiny.”
Linus Torvalds

Source and full article: https://blog.xscode.com/782/announcing-the-redis-open-source-grant-program/

------- xs:code – Redis Labs collaboration -------

We believe that keeping a sustainable open source ecosystem, means getting open source developers the resources they need to continue developing the amazing free software we all use.

This is why we’ve collaborated with Redis Labs to offer open source developers a unique opportunity to kick-start the monetization of their projects, and start offering paid items with their Redis-related open source repositories.

We’re happy to announce a $15,000 fund that is dedicated solely to open source developers working on Redis related projects. If you are developing a Redis related open source project and you want to start monetizing it, you’re automatically entitled to participate in our grant plan, where we match the revenue your project generates on xs:code. For every dollar you make – we’ll pay you a dollar. No need to apply or qualify – just develop an open source project that is Redis-related and monetize it with xs:code.

More details:
https://blog.xscode.com/782/announcing-the-redis-open-source-grant-program/

THE WORLD RUNS ON OPEN-SOURCE, BUT WHO’S PAYING FOR GAS?

Netanel Mohoni — Sun, 24 May 2020 16:37:24 +0000

Full Article here:
https://blog.xscode.com/433/the-world-runs-on-open-source-but-whos-paying-for-gas/

Open source developers face a unique challenge, uncommon with other professionals. They spend thousands of hours of their spare time, creating incredible software, used by millions. In exchange for their efforts, they are bombarded by a torrent of bug reports, pull-requests, support and feature requests. Years of waiting for donations, and next-to-zero compensation for their contributions, is making many of them think again about putting in the same amount of effort.
This article is the result of more than a year of research and summarizes some of the insights we have gained and our projections for the open-source economy in the near future.

Background – The growth of the gig economy

2020 opens with some interesting economic trends. The gig economy is expanding three times faster than the US workforce as a whole (Forbes), affecting over 40% of US-based workers. In the graphic design or digital marketing industries for example, where financial compensation is usually lower than tech, more and more workers are choosing the freelance path, citing independence, better salaries, and an improved work-life balance.

And yet, even with superior compensation, constant top ranking in the “Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For” and other treats such as time to work on personal projects (Google) and 4-day work weeks (Microsoft Japan) – more and more software developers choose to leave the corporate world behind and go solo. Marketplaces such as UpWork, report that more people than ever see freelancing as a long-term career path, many of which are software developers.
Why are developers leaving their corporate comfort zone?

Motivation matters

My team and I were looking for an answer to this question when we interviewed over 130 software developers. One of our questions was: “What has motivated you to sell your software development skills as a freelancer, on platforms such as Fiverr and Up-Work?”. The primary factor cited was ‘The freedom that comes with running their own business’. Self-employed developers set their own schedules, get to choose their projects and clients, and work from the comfort of their home – unlike a standard 9-to-5.

It appears that in 2020 working remotely is almost a standard in the IT industry, and being a corporate developer is not the favored career path for many. The deeper we dove into this notion, another facet of the story was revealed – there was something more, hidden in plain sight. And this is where we discovered the link to open source.

Service vs. Product

The main difference between software developers and other freelancers is the value they create. While a graphic designer offers his service, technically pricing his hours, the software developer can offer something more than just time; He can offer his code as a product.

Open-source developers have the unique possibility to turn a 1 to 1 compensation ratio (1 hour’s work equals 1 hour’s pay) into a 1:n ratio – 1 hour’s work can equal n clients who purchased their product.

Many open source developers already have thousands and even millions of developers and companies using their code, many of them commercially. The next logical step for developers after freelancing – is productizing and monetizing their open-source projects. Open source monetization is the future.

Should companies pay for Open-Source?

The fact is they’re already paying – a lot.

In the absence of a healthy economy based on supply, demand, and price, open-source suffers from critical market failure. Many open source developers we interviewed reported that burnout, lack of time and no compensation are the main reasons for not maintaining their existing projects or creating new open-source projects. Thousands of open source projects are abandoned every year by their developers, leaving their users in a bind. That is a big issue for the companies who spend billions of dollars every year for handling obsolete, undocumented and generally unmaintained open source projects used in their commercial software. When a company assigns a $50/hr developer to fix a bug in a ‘free’ piece of software, it stops being free. Why not pay the original developer for a great open source project that frees corporate resources to tackle mission-critical tasks?

The potential – a steady revenue stream

Companies need functional open-source projects and have the interest to reduce expenses for maintaining them – while developers have the product, the users and the tools to monetize it. This intersection of interests is unavoidable – and will happen soon. Developers are waking up.

Our research indicated over 200,000 open-source projects, excluding huge projects, very small or ones that are not suitable for commercial use, with a revenue potential of $19B annually.

Considering 98% of all software projects rely on open-source connections or core concepts in one form or other (source: GitHub), and with over 40M developers on Github, including 10M new users in 2019 – open source is nearing a boiling point. Without a viable solution for motivating open source developers through financial rewards, the entire open-source ecosystem might become unsustainable.

Conclusion

In the next few years, companies will focus on developing core functionality for their products, and scaling in-house teams down in favor of paid open source projects for more ubiquitous code modules surrounding the core. More open-source developers will be doing what they love, maintaining their projects for their paying clients, and share more, better code with the open-source community.

I promise to keep updating you with our mission: empowering developers and make a better open-source economy.

Netanel Mohoni

Co-Founder, CEO xs:code

How to find the right sponsor for your opensource project

Netanel Mohoni — Sun, 10 May 2020 16:01:03 +0000

The ongoing maintenance and growth of open source projects are clearly in the best interest of the software companies using them. And yet, raising money for an open-source project is difficult, and many developers struggle with finding the right sponsors for their open source projects. What is the best way to get the resources open source developers need to keep developing?

Boiling point:
The open-source sustainability problem has become a burning issue for both OSS developers and software companies. We are reaching a boiling point; Open source components already comprise 70% of code in most software products developed today, and they are maintained by individuals or small teams. These developers work out of their own volition, and without getting the much-needed resources, they just won’t be able to continue maintaining their code on an ongoing basis.

We participated in Sustain OSS in Brussels this January, together with a very respectable representation of software companies (Github, Google, Facebook, and more, who sponsor open source projects in millions of dollars every year). Senior developers and leaders of the open source community from across the globe also attended. It was amazing to see more than 100 people in the same room, working in work-groups and sharing their ideas and thoughts, trying to solve the open source sustainability problem. There was a sense of urgency in the room. People felt like this problem has become something that needs addressing – now.

Continue to full blogpost here:https://blog.xscode.com/736/the-right-sponsor-for-your-open-source-project/

WHY WE’VE STARTED XS:CODE

Netanel Mohoni — Sun, 15 Dec 2019 15:34:29 +0000

"...95% of the developers had one answer to the question “What will motivate you to maintain your project?”. The answer was MONEY."

The full story: https://xscode.com/352/why-weve-started-xscode/