My friend AJ and I shared our learning on collaboration yesterday with a group of technology leaders. AJ is from Australia. I’m from Canada. We’ve been working together to build a customized customer relationship management (CRM) application for some specific needs in the non-profits we help run.
Some highlights.
1. Open-source doesn’t mean free. There are still many costs associated with building and implementing an open-source project.
2. The real (or perceived) threat of a project branching or forking causes partners to collaborate in greater ways
3. Many costs (30-40%) of the collaboration are support, training and leadership. These need to be factored into the total cost – ahead of time.
4. Partners must both consume and produce. It’s not collaboration if one partner is only consuming the work of the other.
doublederivativeca 