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OCS 2020 Breakout: Peter Zaitsev, Founder and CEO of Percona

Peter Zaitsev is the CEO and co-founder of Percona (HQ in Durham, NC, US). As one of the foremost experts on MySQL strategy and optimization, Peter leveraged both his technical vision and entrepreneurial skills to grow Percona from a two-person shop to one of the most respected open source companies in the business. With over 200 remote professionals in 30 plus countries, Peter’s venture now serves over 3,000 customers – including the “who’s who” of internet giants, large enterprises, and many exciting startups.

Relevant Links
LinkedIn - Twitter

Why pure FOSS business models can and do work at scale!

Peter’s introduction and perspective on open source - 0:00

Looking at open source’s evolution. - 1:07

Romantic open source is not about commercial success - 1:55

Looking at Commercial Open Source - 2:28

COSS in the Database Space. What database is most used? SQLite. Over 1 trillion SQLite databases in active use (see: https://www.sqlite.org/mostdeployed.html) - 3:10

SQLite is not Among Commercial Open Source Giants - 4:10

The importance of Balance - 5:05

Exceptions to the COSS principles: MongoDB and AWS - 5:30

Two different ways open source can be developed. Corproate Controlled (MySQL, MongoDB) and Community/Foundation Controlled (Linux, Kubernetes, PostgreSQL) - 7:10

Focus on larger slice or larger cake? - 8:40

How you approach contributors - 10:27

Project vs Product - 11:39

Key Areas - 12:40

What Parts of the Product are Open Source? - 12:55

Openness Choice. Permissive Open Source → Copyleft → Source Available → Proprietary Software -15:15

License Changes - 16:31

If going to license with more restrictions, what should you keep in mind? - 17:09

Consider the Shared Source licenses from Polyform - 18:12

Remember the “Right to Fork” - 19:03

Governance. Who decides the future of the project? Involving users in advisory roles can go a long way. - 20:08

Security. How do you handle security issues? - 20:51

Trademark considerations - 21:47

Conferences and User Groups. For vendors or for users? Focused on diverse opinions or messaging your vision? To what extent is competition/dissent tolerated and encouraged? Are user groups organic or centrally controlled? - 22:53

Summary. Community can be Headwind or Tailwind. Want it to be Tailwind? Act in the best interest of your users, and show that to your users. - 24:52

Contacts - 26:37


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