What are open source committers worth?
Nat Tolkington Nat Torkington of O'Reilly.
They also tell predators he's delicious. (Picture from the blog of Miles McCabe.)
Open source commitment privileges have a similar effect.
When I first took this beat, in early 2005, it was common for companies to brag about how many committers they had. But as these firms have grown, that commitment has to be balanced with money spent serving the needs of customers.
JBOSS, for instance, recruited committers to the company, marketing this capability to its customer base. This told predators like RedHat that JBOSS would be delicious, and it was quickly gobbled up.
Not that there's anything wrong with that, in a corporate sense. Going public and being acquired are both signs of success. Sometimes one can stand in for the other.
But as open source projects have scaled into companies, with separate support departments, how much does having committers on board matter? Is the commitment of serving the community as attractive to customers as what you can do for them? Does she want to see you volunteering at a soup kitchen or handing her a jeweled necklace?
Are open source committers now like pretty feathers on a peacock? And if they don't count as much to customers as before, will open source projects continue to advance?