2026-03-16 –, Room bUm Box
We talk about license changes and risk management for open source companies all the time, but what about how open source companies can use their open source project as a competitive advantage to win in their market? That's what this talk is about.
When an open source companies abandons their open source license, it's rarely because they are horrible people and more often because they've failed to use open source to their advantage.
In this talk, I'll draw on concrete examples from five years of The Business of Open Source, plus my experience as a consultant, to talk about ways that an open source project can give a company an advantage in terms of product development, marketing, sales enablement, internal alignment and more. The goal of this talk is to ultimately prevent more companies from abandoning open source by giving them a concrete roadmap for how to not just mitigate risk but really leverage their open source project to accelerate their business growth over the long term.
Emily Omier is a consultant who helps founders use their involvement in open source as a competitive advantage. She is the co-founder of Open Source Founders Summit and the host of The Business of Open Source podcast.