I've talked to quite a few people about what it means to develop and ship open source software over the past few months.

I'm puzzled by a point that came up many times;

"Open sourcing is a strategy"

Well, lots of things are strategies. Marketing, your product roadmap, the people you hire, the kinds of customers you work with, et cetera.

I think open sourcing is simply open sourcing.

When devs see open sourced software, I don't think they exclaim "oh what a strategy!"

Instead I think developers are more likely to think;

"This is awesome, now how can I use this?"

Once your project is open sourced, it's out there. Experienced professionals will be less likely to pay for exactly the same thing.

However, you can share parts of the system that add up to the "something greater".

Open sourcing something that gives a sneak peek into the system you're shipping and selling can help address a problem or value proposition for someone that needs or wants that thing.

And if they want more, well, it's not all free now is it.

Maybe that's it... open sourcing is a way to index on "more please!"