WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:13.000 So, I'm pleased to introduce Gab Colombo from Finos and Linux Foundation Europe, and please 00:13.000 --> 00:21.880 correct me if I'm mispronouncing EGLE, Abel Senot, from Red River West and commit, and so this 00:21.880 --> 00:26.160 is going to be a different format, no slides, just discussion, and they'll be talking about 00:26.160 --> 00:30.160 accelerating the open source flywheel in Europe with private sector and VC funding. 00:30.160 --> 00:34.160 So, without further ado, please take away. 00:34.160 --> 00:38.160 Thank you, Galen, and thanks for being here. 00:38.160 --> 00:41.160 I know we are the last session of the day. 00:41.160 --> 00:44.160 Actually, Williamson Edition has an event starting now. 00:44.160 --> 00:47.160 So, we're going to be super late. 00:47.160 --> 00:52.160 I'm very excited to have Abel Mithir here. 00:53.160 --> 00:57.160 Today, we're going to talk about how busy funding. 00:57.160 --> 01:00.160 You probably are familiar with the United Nations Edition. 01:00.160 --> 01:11.160 We do sustain open source projects, primarily from a membership standpoint, having both individual 01:11.160 --> 01:18.160 and corporate contributing to sustaining open source projects and also through money and upstream contributions. 01:18.160 --> 01:21.160 I'm a very good number. 01:21.160 --> 01:27.160 I lead one of our fundations, the Finos Edition, and with my thick Italian accent, I also lead 01:27.160 --> 01:31.160 Linux Edition Europe, but I am based in California. 01:31.160 --> 01:35.160 In fact, jet lag is. 01:35.160 --> 01:39.160 You guys have been here for a couple of weeks, but it's still tired. 01:39.160 --> 01:41.160 And maybe Abel, you want to introduce yourself? 01:41.160 --> 01:42.160 Yeah, with pleasure. 01:42.160 --> 01:44.160 Yeah, you don't make. 01:44.160 --> 01:51.160 So, Abel, I'm one of the funders on partner of a new VC fund called Comet, which is the first 01:51.160 --> 01:57.160 fund in Europe, focused 100% in investing in commercial open source companies. 01:57.160 --> 02:05.160 We are engineers at Hertz, and we've leveraged that to scale through interesting repository and 02:05.160 --> 02:11.160 analyze them, and then finance people that want to build a commercial company on top of that. 02:11.160 --> 02:18.160 Together with the community of commercial open source funders and operators, the funders 02:18.160 --> 02:22.160 of engineers, funders of companies like SuperBase, Motel, etc. 02:22.160 --> 02:28.160 And our goal is to support these commercial open source funders on one side. 02:28.160 --> 02:34.160 And then from the financial incentives that we get out from that as a VC, 02:34.160 --> 02:43.160 we also give away a part of that to three open source projects that are not meant to 02:43.160 --> 02:44.160 many times. 02:44.160 --> 02:50.160 So our goal is to create a fly with effect whereby financing the best commercial open source project 02:50.160 --> 02:56.160 we can also then help three open source projects sustain and kind of have an impact 02:56.160 --> 03:01.160 try to have a small impact on the open source senior in Europe. 03:01.160 --> 03:04.160 So that's what we do with Comet's bet to talk today. 03:04.160 --> 03:06.160 Is it your first item? 03:06.160 --> 03:08.160 It's my first item. 03:08.160 --> 03:09.160 First item. 03:09.160 --> 03:10.160 Okay. 03:10.160 --> 03:11.160 Did they let you in? 03:11.160 --> 03:14.160 Because, you know, VC is here. 03:14.160 --> 03:15.160 Yeah. 03:15.160 --> 03:24.160 That's a good place to start, because, you know, I come from a, I grew up in Europe in pretty 03:24.160 --> 03:26.160 grassroots open source community. 03:26.160 --> 03:33.160 And, you know, maybe starting from talking about the relationship between open source 03:33.160 --> 03:39.160 and provider is after is maybe a good place to start. 03:39.160 --> 03:44.160 You know, there obviously are, you know, when someone mentions a VC in a free software 03:44.160 --> 03:50.160 or open source room, they're certainly sort of, you know, antennas go up. 03:51.160 --> 03:55.160 But even in the Linux condition, we have seen obviously we sustain the open source projects, 03:55.160 --> 04:04.160 but we've seen this, this fly will accelerating, and of sustainability is quite a bit, 04:04.160 --> 04:09.160 by, you know, not only enterprises contributing back, but also VC funded, 04:09.160 --> 04:15.160 I think, about the cloud native ecosystem and Kubernetes, obviously this large enterprises 04:15.160 --> 04:22.160 using GitHub is also a huge amount of startups that have been created to sort of build products 04:22.160 --> 04:26.160 and ultimately contribute back upstream into the ecosystem. 04:26.160 --> 04:33.160 So, maybe, you know, a good place to start is sort of to think about what are, 04:33.160 --> 04:38.160 maybe talk a little bit about what are the different business models that sustain open source. 04:38.160 --> 04:43.160 So, like, when I go around and sort of explain even to policymakers that basically 80 to 95% 04:43.160 --> 04:48.160 of providers after is based on open source, and it's our goal to actually, 04:48.160 --> 04:51.160 get the necessary feedback. 04:51.160 --> 04:57.160 But maybe from your standpoint, you know, when you tell us a little bit about how, 04:57.160 --> 05:03.160 how do you see from a VC perspective what are the different business models that you see built on open source? 05:03.160 --> 05:09.160 So, historically, it has been mostly about service. So, redat and all the others, 05:09.160 --> 05:15.160 these other companies selling service on top of open source projects, 05:15.160 --> 05:21.160 to kind of help enterprise companies that don't master this product, 05:21.160 --> 05:25.160 that sometimes don't have the brand to hire themselves great engineers, 05:25.160 --> 05:30.160 because when not a lot of great engineers sometimes want to work in, like, 05:30.160 --> 05:37.160 old companies, etc. So, they need to have service and people that knows this software 05:37.160 --> 05:43.160 and that can help them, you know, implement that, and most of the time these big, 05:43.160 --> 05:51.160 you know, service vendor, they contribute back to the project and that helps this project 05:51.160 --> 05:57.160 to be more sustainable and to grow into very, very big projects. 05:57.160 --> 06:01.160 So, that has been kind of historically what kind of happened there. 06:01.160 --> 06:06.160 And now you had, since a few years, new business model that emerged, 06:06.160 --> 06:12.160 and particularly two business model, one is called Open Core, 06:12.160 --> 06:18.160 and the core of the software is completely open source, 06:18.160 --> 06:24.160 and the software that SMBs, developers, individual contributors, 06:25.160 --> 06:28.160 that are really used, ease open source. 06:28.160 --> 06:33.160 But the features that you, that's big enterprise companies, 06:33.160 --> 06:38.160 need to implement it, that really has scale, like, you know, 06:38.160 --> 06:43.160 multi-tenant, SLA, etc., etc. 06:43.160 --> 06:50.160 or sometimes are a bit close source or at least you need to pay for that. 06:50.160 --> 06:55.160 And I think it's a business model that is interesting because in one sense, 06:55.160 --> 07:01.160 all the developers that don't have the money to pay for the product, 07:01.160 --> 07:05.160 have the benefit of getting a product that improves, and that is free, 07:05.160 --> 07:11.160 and that is getting better, and that sometimes is much better than the close source competitors. 07:11.160 --> 07:15.160 But the company and the people building this project, 07:15.160 --> 07:21.160 still managed to build a sustainable business model by, you know, 07:21.160 --> 07:23.160 making the big enterprise pay. 07:23.160 --> 07:28.160 The thing is always, you know, you need to be, you have a product, 07:28.160 --> 07:34.160 and you have a product, and you need to continue sustaining your project, 07:34.160 --> 07:38.160 and your open source projects, that your community will continue contributing, 07:38.160 --> 07:42.160 and it would grow, etc., but on the other side, you need to find a way 07:42.160 --> 07:50.160 to not make it your main competitor for selling to big enterprise. 07:50.160 --> 07:56.160 So that's the challenge, and that's something that a lot of people struggle on, 07:56.160 --> 08:01.160 and some did very, very well, you know, the team at the Databricks built up, 08:01.160 --> 08:05.160 as she spoke, and then built a Databricks on top of that, etc., 08:05.160 --> 08:10.160 and then you have the hosting business model where you have a lot of people 08:10.160 --> 08:14.160 that want to host the projects themselves, and etc., but sometimes, 08:14.160 --> 08:19.160 people don't want to host themselves, they are database, scale it, etc., 08:19.160 --> 08:24.160 or when you have, you know, a calendar, a tentative, like CADOTCAL.com, 08:24.160 --> 08:29.160 maybe you don't want to host it yourself, and you just want to play for platform, 08:29.160 --> 08:33.160 and then you have these businesses, like super-base, for example, 08:33.160 --> 08:37.160 my natural post-grace career, etc., who offer these kind of services, 08:37.160 --> 08:42.160 and are able to kind of sustain also their open source business. 08:42.160 --> 08:45.160 So that's the main business model that we look at. 08:45.160 --> 08:51.160 Then it's not a business model, but I will say that some, you see on the other side of the spectrum, 08:51.160 --> 08:58.160 big text, using open source kind of as a weapon, a weapon to commoditize markets, 08:58.160 --> 09:04.160 you know, be able to compete against each other, which sometimes does great thing, 09:04.160 --> 09:07.160 because they offer to the world a lot of great things, and sometimes, you know, 09:07.160 --> 09:11.160 it's a lot, not sure about the motivation behind that. 09:11.160 --> 09:16.160 Well, we'll get there through our talk, and I think, if I can, 09:16.160 --> 09:19.160 you know, we'll do this going to be more of a fire search out, if you guys are okay, 09:19.160 --> 09:24.160 it's going to have actually the fire in there, but it's been advised not to. 09:25.160 --> 09:33.160 Now, I think, on one hand, you know, I started working in open source 20 years ago, 09:33.160 --> 09:38.160 aging myself, and I was working for a commercial open source company, 09:38.160 --> 09:43.160 kind of classic school of fresco, and, you know, they were the own, 09:43.160 --> 09:48.160 they have their own open source, and, you know, they would be the community and the press version, 09:48.160 --> 09:53.160 things really changed when cloud came in, and I've seen sort of this sort of goal, 09:53.160 --> 09:57.160 sort of open source plus SaaS business model, which certainly opened, 09:57.160 --> 10:02.160 kind of a way, I think, an easier way to monetize open source, 10:02.160 --> 10:07.160 but also kind of a clean division between what, you know, 10:07.160 --> 10:11.160 the community can do versus creating sort of additional offerings, you know, 10:11.160 --> 10:16.160 for enterprises, for example, a different sort of delivery model for open source 10:16.160 --> 10:20.160 piece, you're not really selling this software, you're selling a service. 10:20.160 --> 10:26.160 On the other hand, we'll talk about the side effect of cloud on open source, 10:26.160 --> 10:40.160 but I guess maybe my next question would be what, like, what do you think, 10:40.160 --> 10:44.160 you know, obviously when there is a proprietary software, you know, 10:44.160 --> 10:49.160 what's the main difference in terms of besides sort of the funding side of things? 10:49.160 --> 10:54.160 What do you think the benefits are for enterprise to sort of leverage, 10:54.160 --> 10:58.160 you know, obviously from the standpoint that they still have to buy, you know, 10:58.160 --> 11:02.160 they still have to sign somewhere when they buy sort of enterprise software, 11:02.160 --> 11:04.160 but what do they do? 11:04.160 --> 11:05.160 Why do they do it? 11:05.160 --> 11:08.160 Why do they still get an advantage? 11:08.160 --> 11:11.160 I think it's about a few things. 11:11.160 --> 11:15.160 One is about reducing vendor looking. 11:16.160 --> 11:19.160 When I'm talking today to CEOs of big groups, 11:19.160 --> 11:25.160 they are, they want to reduce the number of SaaS platform that they use, 11:25.160 --> 11:28.160 these SaaS platforms sometimes are squeezing them, 11:28.160 --> 11:35.160 putting higher price, closing the data, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. 11:35.160 --> 11:42.160 And so having a platform like for example, you can use a host adversion of superbase, 11:42.160 --> 11:47.160 but if you want, you can just take the open source, I think it's Apache 2, 11:47.160 --> 11:52.160 and host it yourself, and so if they, at some point, 11:52.160 --> 11:56.160 they want to kind of lock you, or if you have, at some point, 11:56.160 --> 12:01.160 I don't know, tariffs, some software, or stuff like that, you can, you can live. 12:01.160 --> 12:07.160 So that's kind of a freedom and something that allows you also to negotiate and to have more weight. 12:07.160 --> 12:13.160 Then I think it's, for a lot of them, it's having access to being able to self-host, 12:13.160 --> 12:17.160 being able to keep your data for yourself. 12:17.160 --> 12:22.160 That's why that's where the definition becomes a bit complicated, 12:22.160 --> 12:24.160 because it's not most of them are not open source, 12:24.160 --> 12:30.160 but open weight models in AI is interesting for a lot of people, 12:30.160 --> 12:36.160 because they don't want to give away all of the data and to lose control over their business. 12:36.160 --> 12:38.160 That's why. 12:38.160 --> 12:45.160 And then it's about trust and about being able to audit the code and understand what's behind it. 12:45.160 --> 12:50.160 And I would say, last one thing that we find very interesting is that, 12:50.160 --> 12:54.160 in infrastructure, when you are a small company, a small business, 12:54.160 --> 12:58.160 that wants to sell to a big bank or a big energy provider, 12:58.160 --> 13:04.160 you know, an API management solution or a solution that's on which all of their infrastructure will run, 13:04.160 --> 13:06.160 and millions of clients will use that. 13:06.160 --> 13:09.160 And if you are a small company of 10 people, 13:09.160 --> 13:13.160 I'm not sure this big company with millions of clients 13:13.160 --> 13:18.160 would want to buy your product if you're not open source. 13:18.160 --> 13:23.160 Just, even if it's the best product, just because it's too risky for them, 13:23.160 --> 13:28.160 because if you die, if you don't have the money to sustain yourself, 13:28.160 --> 13:32.160 they won't, they don't try infrastructure is done. 13:32.160 --> 13:38.160 And so having the access to the code allows them to kind of have this insurance also. 13:38.160 --> 13:42.160 So it's about sovereignty insurance and safety. 13:42.160 --> 13:47.160 I think people think it's about and used to think and still think, 13:47.160 --> 13:49.160 in a lot of ways, that is about cost. 13:49.160 --> 13:51.160 I think it shouldn't be about cost. 13:51.160 --> 13:57.160 It should be about having more control and having more, yeah. 13:57.160 --> 14:00.160 That's very well said. 14:00.160 --> 14:06.160 I started 15 years ago, sort of in the grassroots open source, 14:06.160 --> 14:10.160 and then, you know, went to a very different world as a, 14:10.160 --> 14:14.160 I joined the Linux Foundation, you're by bringing banks together, 14:14.160 --> 14:17.160 working an open source so you can imagine that, you know, 14:17.160 --> 14:20.160 asking banks is, hey, you should share your code. 14:20.160 --> 14:21.160 This is the Apache way. 14:21.160 --> 14:25.160 This is, you know, the right thing to do 14:25.160 --> 14:28.160 wasn't necessarily what was moving them. 14:28.160 --> 14:34.160 And certainly cost, cost reduction was the first point that they look at. 14:34.160 --> 14:37.160 But obviously, as we know, open source is not free. 14:37.160 --> 14:38.160 It's not free to build. 14:38.160 --> 14:39.160 It's not free to manage. 14:39.160 --> 14:43.160 And I think we should, what I'm seeing, especially as I came back, 14:43.160 --> 14:45.160 really in the last couple of weeks, 14:45.160 --> 14:50.160 I still think that in Europe, many enterprises think about open source as free. 14:50.160 --> 14:51.160 Yeah. 14:51.160 --> 14:53.160 And there's a lot that we need to fix there. 14:53.160 --> 15:01.160 But if anything moving from the vendor lock-in prevention to the digital sovereignty 15:01.160 --> 15:04.160 conversation, since we now, you know, understandably, 15:04.160 --> 15:08.160 that's a lot what we're talking about, but the concept is really the same. 15:08.160 --> 15:13.160 It's like you want to regain control with your an enterprise or a state of your own 15:13.160 --> 15:14.160 technology destiny. 15:14.160 --> 15:24.160 It actually seems that it allows certain allowing me to have conversations that are more 15:24.160 --> 15:29.160 around the strategic goal for these organizations that is not just saving money. 15:29.160 --> 15:35.160 They hated, like, this is a strategic choice to reduce dependency on foreign vendors, 15:35.160 --> 15:42.160 like something that really would create an operational risk to your to your day by day business. 15:42.160 --> 15:48.160 And I think that's the first time that you're seeing like discussion around open source at 15:48.160 --> 15:51.160 board level of very big companies. 15:51.160 --> 15:55.160 And they didn't, like, most of them didn't even know what was open source. 15:55.160 --> 15:58.160 Yeah, a few months or things like that to go. 15:58.160 --> 16:03.160 These story around, like they've all heard of deep seek. 16:03.160 --> 16:05.160 They've all heard of all of these things. 16:05.160 --> 16:08.160 And now they're hearing about what's happening. 16:08.160 --> 16:14.160 And the potential to kind of curse caught the access to US vendors and stuff like that. 16:14.160 --> 16:17.160 And it's becoming a risk and went in, speak of me in risk. 16:17.160 --> 16:19.160 You have the board that involves itself. 16:19.160 --> 16:22.160 And then that can push the things forward. 16:22.160 --> 16:25.160 I'm absolutely, I think we have a honest and opportunity. 16:25.160 --> 16:33.160 If we do this right, not just for commercial open source, but for open sort itself to sort of go to the board room. 16:33.160 --> 16:36.160 And the problem there, maybe I can add one point is, 16:36.160 --> 16:40.160 I was talking with the Sizo of Big Bang that was telling me. 16:40.160 --> 16:46.160 What I like about commercial open source is that I have the advantage of open source and the advantage of SaaS, 16:46.160 --> 16:51.160 which is that if the product breaks with commercial open source, 16:51.160 --> 16:57.160 I have, like, the company that's normally is kind of an insurance that they should fix it. 16:57.160 --> 17:04.160 But if I choose a open source project where don't have a company behind, if it breaks, it's the best of both works. 17:04.160 --> 17:05.160 Yeah, I'm fired. 17:05.160 --> 17:08.160 And I don't want to be fired for a technical choice. 17:08.160 --> 17:15.160 So I prefer sometimes using, you know, this kind of thing where I have the insurance of having people that can be reliant with that. 17:15.160 --> 17:19.160 I think, yeah, I think it's very well said. 17:19.160 --> 17:24.160 And I want to kind of get some practical issues because we've been, you know, 17:24.160 --> 17:30.160 I've been talking a lot to policymakers and enterprises here in Europe on how, you know, 17:30.160 --> 17:34.160 I think we need to move from the conversation of open source is great for digital sovereignty to how. 17:34.160 --> 17:35.160 Yeah. 17:35.160 --> 17:42.160 We actually get there and I think besides raising the profile of open source on the enterprise side as we're doing, 17:42.160 --> 17:50.160 I think it's equally important that we look at the funding side and sort of not talking only about the commission 17:50.160 --> 17:52.160 and government funding of open source. 17:52.160 --> 17:57.160 In other devs we're talking about the sovereign tech fund, sovereign tech agency, 17:57.160 --> 17:59.160 maintain sustaining open source containers. 17:59.160 --> 18:04.160 But that's why I'm very interested on the busy side of things of how we create 18:04.160 --> 18:10.160 an ecosystem of commercial companies here in Europe that can scale and create competition. 18:10.160 --> 18:16.160 But when I actually was at the conference, you guys have organized last summer. 18:16.160 --> 18:24.160 And I was with three European funders all of them moved to the US to get funding. 18:24.160 --> 18:29.160 And a better funding and a better exit. 18:29.160 --> 18:32.160 I have seen things changing in the last year. 18:32.160 --> 18:34.160 I've spoken to more VCs. 18:34.160 --> 18:37.160 So I'm interested to speak to VCs because I want to make, 18:37.160 --> 18:41.160 want to help make commercial open source part of the sort of central investment thesis, 18:41.160 --> 18:45.160 which I gave you guys one good example. 18:45.160 --> 18:51.160 I've seen things changing on the policy side where there's less conversation around regulation, 18:51.160 --> 18:55.160 and more conversation around doing stuff. 18:55.160 --> 18:59.160 Things like, I don't know if you guys have heard about the EU ink proposal, 18:59.160 --> 19:06.160 like creating a single sort of company that can access the 27 states in a more simple way, 19:06.160 --> 19:08.160 because in the US you create a company in Delaware, 19:08.160 --> 19:11.160 you access 350 million consumers here. 19:11.160 --> 19:15.160 You have to have 27 companies, you want access to 27 states. 19:15.160 --> 19:17.160 And that really it's a major friction. 19:17.160 --> 19:24.160 But also things like the scale up Europe fund and trying to push for it to be sort of very focused on open source. 19:24.160 --> 19:29.160 What do you see in the sort of funding landscape in Europe? 19:29.160 --> 19:31.160 Are you seeing the same thing? 19:31.160 --> 19:36.160 I mean, obviously you're doing it, but is this not a lot of competitors right now? 19:36.160 --> 19:39.160 Are your competitors looking at open source in the same way? 19:39.160 --> 19:42.160 What's interesting is that Europe has always been, 19:42.160 --> 19:44.160 has always had this culture of open source, 19:44.160 --> 19:49.160 where in the US the DARPA was building the ancestor of the World War Web, 19:49.160 --> 19:51.160 we built the World War Web in Europe. 19:51.160 --> 19:54.160 Yes, people in Europe. 19:54.160 --> 19:56.160 Same for Linux, et cetera, et cetera. 19:56.160 --> 19:59.160 We have more developers in Europe than in the US. 19:59.160 --> 20:05.160 When you look at the biggest commercial open source in the companies in the world, 20:05.160 --> 20:09.160 more than half of them have been funded by at least one European funder. 20:09.160 --> 20:17.160 It's the only area of the tech industry where the majority of the big companies have been funded by European people. 20:17.160 --> 20:24.160 But the thing is that most of them have been funded in the US because they couldn't find any financing in Europe. 20:24.160 --> 20:34.160 When you look at the number, 80% of the big commercial open source companies in Europe were financed by US funds from the beginning. 20:34.160 --> 20:39.160 When you look at normal software SaaS, it's 27%. 20:39.160 --> 20:42.160 So we can see there is a big gap there. 20:42.160 --> 20:47.160 Because most VCs in Europe are former consultants, 20:47.160 --> 20:51.160 former private equity guys, et cetera, et cetera. 20:51.160 --> 20:57.160 And you don't have a lot of developers from the funders in the VC landscape in Europe. 20:57.160 --> 21:00.160 And that's what we are trying to do with commit. 21:00.160 --> 21:04.160 We are from our operators, developers that are scientists and entrepreneurs. 21:04.160 --> 21:13.160 And our goal is to try to finance these developers that are building very cool companies and try to bring them. 21:13.160 --> 21:23.160 Most of the tools that we have a lot to have to kind of build the company and build the sustainable business that will respect their open source community. 21:23.160 --> 21:28.160 And that will allow them to scale and to create and to have a global impact. 21:28.160 --> 21:34.160 And so today we don't have any fund, we didn't have any fund focused on open source in Europe. 21:34.160 --> 21:36.160 And that's what we are trying to do. 21:36.160 --> 21:40.160 I'm very excited to say how you guys go and I'm happy to help. 21:40.160 --> 21:43.160 I hope being here at Fuzzlem is generating. 21:43.160 --> 21:44.160 Thank you. 21:44.160 --> 21:47.160 You know, quite a lot of interest on that. 21:47.160 --> 21:54.160 We'll have cool interactions in a little bit, but I want to touch on one other topic that is sort of hinted to. 21:54.160 --> 22:00.160 You know, VC is always an interesting word in the open source world. 22:00.160 --> 22:12.160 And particularly in the last year we've seen in the last few years we've seen, you know, several VC backed commercial open source companies changing their license. 22:12.160 --> 22:18.160 And as you say, you know, this is also a sort of, you know, 22:18.160 --> 22:25.160 if I'm thinking elastic I'm thinking among I'm thinking red is I'm thinking, you know, there's a few of them. 22:25.160 --> 22:31.160 And obviously shameless plug, often time the community has exercises, writes it right to fork. 22:31.160 --> 22:36.160 And this project has been forked and recently put in the Linux Foundation. 22:36.160 --> 22:42.160 That's why the foundation exists to make sure that projects open source projects stay open forever. 22:42.160 --> 22:46.160 That's sort of the role of a neutral steward amongst other things. 22:46.160 --> 23:00.160 But, you know, I guess we don't take necessary religious position in any direction, but I'd be curious to see, you know, as a VC. 23:00.160 --> 23:02.160 You know, you mentioned you have to be respectful to the community. 23:02.160 --> 23:07.160 It's interesting to see that you're thinking some of your company funds, you know, 23:07.160 --> 23:11.160 fund that we'll go back to, some of the proceeds we'll go back to you upstream community. 23:11.160 --> 23:21.160 But what's your position on rock pools as a VC should we, should be worried that you're going to get to manage to change license? 23:21.160 --> 23:26.160 I think most VC's just don't understand what's unique about open source. 23:26.160 --> 23:32.160 And I think they don't understand that not only it's immoral to change your license, 23:32.160 --> 23:37.160 because it's a contract, a contract of trust and the most important thing in this world. 23:37.160 --> 23:42.160 And not just, you know, put in the open source world, but they believe it kind of, more broadly, is trust. 23:42.160 --> 23:44.160 Trust with your peers, trust with you. 23:44.160 --> 23:47.160 You know, immoral VC is kind of an oxymoron, isn't it? 23:47.160 --> 23:51.160 Yeah, and it's not just immoral, so there is the moral compass. 23:51.160 --> 24:02.160 And then there is like the financial result, which are, it is proven that each time you change your license for each time, 24:02.160 --> 24:08.160 it may be more than 90% of the time you change your license for a license that is less permissive. 24:08.160 --> 24:13.160 You will lose your community and financially speaking, you will lose money. 24:13.160 --> 24:17.160 So there is no point in doing that. 24:17.160 --> 24:23.160 And it's just for me, people that don't understand the business model, that don't understand the open source world. 24:23.160 --> 24:28.160 And I think, oh, they have just 1% of the client paying. 24:28.160 --> 24:32.160 If I close the license, everybody will be paying and we will be, you know, we will be, you know, 24:32.160 --> 24:35.160 I will be, you know, we will be, you know, we will be, but 100 the revenue, that doesn't work like that. 24:35.160 --> 24:40.160 And from all of these examples, we've seen all of these projects that have been forks. 24:40.160 --> 24:46.160 Yeah, and you lose your trust of your community, you never get that back. 24:46.160 --> 24:53.160 And you, your gross stumble, you lose revenue, et cetera, et cetera, and the end, it's a loose loose loose. 24:53.160 --> 25:01.160 So I think it's has been something that people have experienced because they haven't understood that and 25:02.160 --> 25:06.160 May I hope people will not do the same mistake in the future 25:07.160 --> 25:10.160 Some will do because they won't have like read this 25:11.160 --> 25:18.160 Learn these lessons or just to did the things and I hope like most won't because in the future 25:19.160 --> 25:22.160 We have these examples now that it doesn't work 25:24.160 --> 25:30.160 I must tell I guess so now I think it's a really good point and what I would love to add is that 25:31.160 --> 25:34.160 You know again, we don't take a religious stance on outside here 25:35.160 --> 25:42.160 You know there are commercial reasons why this single vendor open source companies have changed their license and often time 25:43.160 --> 25:45.160 It's pressure from the hyperscalers 25:45.160 --> 25:47.160 Effectively competitive pressure from the hyperscaler 25:48.160 --> 25:50.160 So I sort of understand from a commercial perspective 25:50.160 --> 25:56.160 But you know in my experience even in companies that I work for in the past 25:59.160 --> 26:08.160 It's kind of an art to maintain the balance between community and commercial sort of outcome 26:09.160 --> 26:13.160 I think defining the contract upfront very clearly 26:14.160 --> 26:17.160 Sometimes you don't know the contract 26:17.160 --> 26:20.160 Sometimes you don't know what you're going to do 26:21.160 --> 26:30.160 And in that case we would prefer you begin like you know bit less permissive like HEPL and then you go more permissive 26:31.160 --> 26:35.160 Then the contrary where you're like breaking the trust 26:36.160 --> 26:41.160 So if you don't know maybe you can start like that and then while you kind of know more you 26:41.160 --> 26:45.160 You become more permissive 26:46.160 --> 26:48.160 Yeah, and I think sometimes it's just even 26:49.160 --> 26:53.160 It's not really they don't know that just don't understand there's no one side with soul 26:53.160 --> 26:59.160 I think that some I've seen many examples in with the value line has been drawn in a completely long way 27:00.160 --> 27:04.160 And then after a while the business becomes not sustainable and sort of use that as a 27:05.160 --> 27:07.160 Last resort 27:07.160 --> 27:12.160 The same I'm sort of a particular big fan of these layers I work in a foundation of sort of 27:13.160 --> 27:17.160 Saas models on one side you're building a platform and then the platform will leave you an open government 27:18.160 --> 27:24.160 Setting because you know, it might not always be the solution but it clears it creates a very clear contract between 27:25.160 --> 27:29.160 On one side you have the ecosystem of commercial companies on the other side you have a very clean 27:30.160 --> 27:32.160 Openly govern meritocratic project 27:33.160 --> 27:35.160 So we need to wrap because we have two minutes left 27:38.160 --> 27:44.160 You're here, I'm sure to meet a lot of builders as you build a fund 27:45.160 --> 27:49.160 What's your recommendation for builders in 2026? 27:50.160 --> 27:55.160 Continue building and continue shaping I don't have particular recommendation for builders 27:56.160 --> 28:02.160 But if you're building something cool and want to know more about like how could you potentially make it bigger 28:02.160 --> 28:09.160 Make it a business out of that we there would love to kind of talk to you and just to kind of 28:10.160 --> 28:16.160 Bring our experience of like helping entrepreneurs doing that so don't hesitate to contact us 28:17.160 --> 28:19.160 This website is commit.fund 28:20.160 --> 28:22.160 So yeah, happy to talk it's pretty cool website 28:24.160 --> 28:30.160 Yes, absolutely that's what is there any question 28:32.160 --> 28:34.160 Please 28:34.160 --> 28:36.160 Sub serving question 28:37.160 --> 28:39.160 Sorry 28:39.160 --> 28:41.160 Again share this on 28:42.160 --> 28:47.160 I was interested because you mentioned the question of I mean licensed changes and also contracts 28:48.160 --> 28:50.160 I'm trying to understand that better myself 28:51.160 --> 28:53.160 Do you have any advice 28:53.160 --> 28:59.160 To either projects for considering VC funding or VCs or considering investing into open source about 28:59.160 --> 29:03.160 Like CLAs and whether they should have or not have one 29:05.160 --> 29:12.160 Yeah, I mean to me it was sort of touched on it and you tell me what you think about here 29:13.160 --> 29:17.160 But to me is less so about the 29:20.160 --> 29:27.160 Like the usage of CLAs the choice of a license the whether you use a foundation or not 29:29.160 --> 29:31.160 in my mind is 29:31.160 --> 29:33.160 a function of 29:33.160 --> 29:40.160 If you're trying a function of the business model you're trying to do around the open source project and so in some cases 29:40.160 --> 29:48.160 I mean we've seen say Kubernetes it was born as you were saying as a way to sort of commoditize a certain ecosystem out of enterprise 29:49.160 --> 29:58.160 But he wouldn't have become such a defect to standard if he wasn't in a foundation if he wasn't in a foundation that does not require copyright 29:59.160 --> 30:02.160 Like the linear solution so that effectively the copyright is spread around 30:03.160 --> 30:06.160 That is left in the hands of the communities of no single entity owns it 30:07.160 --> 30:13.160 I've also seen very good examples of single vendor open source projects that 30:15.160 --> 30:22.160 Understood the contract and you know they got away with sort of saying yes, I'm using a CLA you give me the copyright 30:22.160 --> 30:30.160 But you know allow open governance have never broken the contract and I think that's a function of them having picked 30:31.160 --> 30:39.160 Sort of the right model in the right contract for the build business that they wanted to build so that this sort of flywheel was was respected 30:40.160 --> 30:43.160 So I don't I don't think there's one side fits all I guess that's my answer 30:44.160 --> 30:47.160 I think times up, but yeah, I would completely agree with that 30:47.160 --> 30:50.160 I think in the end the more 30:51.160 --> 30:54.160 Permissive you are the more adoption you're going to have 30:55.160 --> 31:00.160 But sometimes the more it will be difficult to monetize it really depend on your on what you're building 31:01.160 --> 31:06.160 Sometimes it will be easy to monetize with this because your project is perfect for that 31:07.160 --> 31:13.160 And on the other side the less you know permissive you are more you put back conditions and strings attached to that 31:14.160 --> 31:20.160 Unless you're going to have adoption so maybe it will also impact a lot of your petition potential revenue 31:21.160 --> 31:24.160 So there is no one side fit all that's why also 31:25.160 --> 31:36.160 We with coming to the goal is to have people that have already done that in all the different spectrum so that they can kind of insert the equation based on your particular 31:37.160 --> 31:38.160 You know 31:38.160 --> 31:40.160 Experience and plot the project 31:41.160 --> 31:45.160 Thank you. Thank you much for being here. I want to thank you all guys for staying 31:46.160 --> 31:56.160 I hope you found it interesting and I got to say I've been so excited to be back in Europe this week because I'm seeing a very different energy 31:57.160 --> 31:59.160 Few world by digital sovereignty 32:01.160 --> 32:07.160 Seriously, there are good vices that really understand open source 32:07.160 --> 32:14.160 So let's scale some of these open source projects in Europe. I think this is a we have a unique opportunity at the moment 32:15.160 --> 32:18.360 So I hope you have a good time for the rest of the first them. Thank you. Thank you