Joshua Warren  0:06  
If I go out and I've subscribed to a Shopify, or if I buy Salesforce commerce, cloud, that type of thing, if they want to discontinue that product, they want to change that product, I'm kind of out of luck, I kind of have to do what they want. With open source, the way the open source licenses are written, once you release some code is open source, you can't take it back, it's out there forever. So that kind of gives you this, this ability to know that whatever you're building, whatever you're doing, you can keep it forever, you can use it forever.

Darin Newbold  0:40  
Good day, and welcome back to Commerce today. My name is Darren and I'm here with my trusted partner, Josh, to talk to you about what's happening in Commerce today. And our topic that we're looking to go through is a little bit going back in history, but it's available and ready. Today, even so, Josh wanted to see what's your thoughts? And why would someone want to consider an open source commerce solution? So we're really talking about open source? So what is that all about? Yeah,

Joshua Warren  1:10  
so first of all, if you're not familiar with open source, basically, it means that the source code, so the code that that makes the program go that makes the ecommerce platform operate, is available under a public license, meaning that anyone can go out there, view it, download it, use it, there's a sane and the open source world that it is not free, as in beer, it is freezing speech. So it doesn't necessarily mean you're gonna be able to use it for free. You don't have to pay a licensing fee for the software. But you do usually have to pay a developer to help you implement it, that type of thing. So that is, in contrast to a closed source solution, which basically means you don't have the rights to the source code, the ability necessarily to look at or use the source code. Or it could just mean that you have to pay some sort of licensing fee before you get that source code.

Darin Newbold  2:00  
So for those listening that are more like me, let's let's break it down a little bit. So Microsoft Word, for instance, is closed source. So we pay the license, we can use it, but we can't go and change the code, or do anything to make it with Microsoft Word. It's we got to use it as it is out of the box. Correct? Yep. So and then there was an open, oh, you even remind Open Office, Open Office, Open Office, which has a word processor, what that would allow me to do is potentially potentially I could use it for free. And I believe for at least a time, there was a time we could. But I could have the ability if I wanted to add a feature, or do something with it. If I had the knowledge and the ability to do it. I could change that. Correct? Yep. And so the same thing would apply for a commerce platform, where the difference between a Shopify per se and a Magento, open source. This is what we're kind of talking about. Correct? Exactly. All right. So all right, I kind of lead in with kind of the next question on, you know, how does this apply to commerce? I mentioned Magento, open source, and Shopify. So I guess how does this work in the commerce world?

Joshua Warren  3:07  
Yeah, a lot of people don't realize that open source has been a big part of E commerce, pretty much from the start. Way back in 2000, there was a platform. They called it something different back then they renamed in like 2003. But it was called OS commerce, which literally stands for Open Source commerce.

Darin Newbold  3:26  
Didn't you tell me you started on that? And yeah,

Joshua Warren  3:28  
that's actually what my very, very first ecommerce project was before 2000. We did not have platforms, we had to write everything from scratch, uphill both ways. But yeah, after very soon after that, basically, as soon as OS commerce was released, I said, Okay, I'm not doing this whole writing everything from scratch thing again. And that's really where I got my start with some of my bigger projects was with OS commerce, until about 2008. And that is when Magento open source was released, and started using that. So. So yeah, open source, like I was saying has a very long history in E commerce. There's, I think, a big part of the E commerce boom that we saw kind of the, the early 2000s, and even some of the 2010s I think that's because of these open source solutions, because you weren't having to go out there and pay 2050 $100,000 to get a big fancy ecommerce platform. Those that were on the web back then tended to be the early adopters that wanted to get their hands dirty in the code that would download one of these open source commerce platforms and put, put them up on a server and go

Darin Newbold  4:37  
well, and the other thing is, is there were, I'm sure, innovative integrators and developers out there that were creating add ons or API's, if you will, or whatever, to these commerce platforms to make them even better.

Joshua Warren  4:52  
That's so true. And that's the there's a community and an ethos basically around open source, that it's not just about out, what can you take? Like, what what can this platform do for me, but it's very much about giving back. And so developers, especially nowadays, with open source platforms that are hosted on GitHub, you will see developers that love contributing their code back that they're actually it's not just that they can download and use the code, or even modify it themselves, they can modify it and then contribute those new features, new functions back into the platform. And when you get a big enough critical mass around that of developers contributing to a platform, you can see really explosive growth of new features and functions. And that's really, the early days of Magento. Or I think a time we will probably never see again, were just so many people had gathered around that one open source project and contributed so much so fast.

Darin Newbold  5:47  
Well, you never know where we might see it, it may or may not ever be an E commerce again, but you never know. But thinking around just e commerce, I mean, what would be an advantage of a open source ecommerce platform versus a versus a closed source or, you know, the big the big box.

Joshua Warren  6:05  
So I have a big, independent streak, I don't like being dependent on other people or other things. And that's one of the things that I loved about open source from the start is, if I if I go out, and I've subscribed to a Shopify, or if I buy a Salesforce, commerce, cloud, that type of thing. If they want to discontinue that product, if they want to change that product, I'm kind of out of luck, I kind of have to do what they want. With open source, the way the open source licenses are written. Once you release some code is open source, you can't take it back, it's out there forever. So that kind of gives you this, this ability to know that whatever you're building, whatever you're doing, you can keep it forever, you can use it forever. Even if the company maybe behind the project goes away changes their mind, something like that, you still have that code, there's still a community, you can still contribute to it.

Darin Newbold  6:57  
And an interesting piece of that just to pause you for just a second on that is thinking about one of those great features that you may have loved in your software. And suddenly, suddenly, that feature goes away when you upgrade because the company took it away, or they adjusted it or whatever, in an open source, you can make sure that feature never goes away. Correct. And you can make sure that even if there's new builds or whatever, that it continues to stay current and good with the new version, right?

Joshua Warren  7:29  
Yep, you can do that. And you can even go as far. And this is probably going too far down the open source rabbit hole. But there's the concept of forks, which basically means I'm going to take this open source project, I'm going to clone it, put it out under a new name and take it in a slightly different direction. So if you don't like the direction that an open source platform is going in, if you get enough people around you that agree, you can create a new one, you can say, Alright, maybe in the core version of this open source platform, this feature is being taken out and they don't like it, they don't support it. Well, we're going to create a new fork that is all about that feature. So it includes it as whatever upgrades and then you're kind of on your own well.

Darin Newbold  8:08  
So what would be a reason? What would be some of the reasons for those that are listening? What would be a reason that they might choose an open source platform versus going to and hey, just pulling it off the shelf? Because obviously, we've all seen the marketing off the shelf, hey, I can have a store in 30 seconds. I can be a millionaire in 45 minutes. I mean, that's what I hear all the time. So

Joshua Warren  8:32  
yeah, I'm still wondering why you're why you're still here. Well, you haven't

Darin Newbold  8:36  
smart enough to buy the off the box. So off the shelf, but anyway. But why would why would someone want to go down this route? Or what would be an add a damn advantage? And maybe some disadvantages? I'm sure in there, we know what some of them are. But what would you see there? Yeah, I

Joshua Warren  8:51  
think that you, you need to either it really depends on if you're an individual or if you're part of a company. But whatever size entity we're talking about, to really take advantage of open source, you need a developer, you probably need multiple developers. And so I know especially in the early days of open source commerce platforms, everyone was hoping, hey, I can just I can just go run this, it'll be free, I can launch a site for free. It's not free, you definitely need some some technical help. However, if you have that, and you have unique requirements or unique customizations that you need to build, open source can be a great place to start because you have all of the code for the platform. So if there's some piece of that platform that doesn't fit what your business needs, you can rip it out, you can change it, you can replace it. So I would say that's a real big advantage. And then on the disadvantage side, you know, there's there's a lot of these platforms, open source platforms that are backed by a company. And usually what you see is sort of the example is one example is Adobe. So Adobe has Magento open source, it's free, open source, anybody can download it, or you can buy the paid version from them. Adobe commerce. In some of those, like in the Magento, Adobe example, the main thing you're buying is additional features, there's, you know, commercial only features that you have to pay Adobe for. There's some platforms out there that really all you're buying by buying the paid version is you have a company that supports it. And that may be something that was big about 510 years ago was they would provide some level of protection against patent lawsuits, for instance. And so it's not always a features functionality different sometimes it's a support legal agreement, I know that. Luckily, this attitude has shifted at most major companies now. But there used to be an attitude of well, you can't trust open source, because it's a bunch of random developers on the internet, we want one big company we can buy from so kind of like that IBM approach, we want one vendor that can provide

Darin Newbold  10:54  
all of them the one throat to choke as a, as they like to say, well, that that is very interesting. So what I'm hearing is a person that maybe maybe either has a great idea and is in a startup and maybe has a you know, this is that common. The friends in the garage, and one of them's a great developer, and they have the great idea for the product, the developer can do the do the stuff on the side to make the site and sell it. And suddenly we have, you know, whatever name the company, from a larger company standpoint, Eve, whether it's a small, SMB small to mid size, on the enterprise level, they're doing such customizations likely, even with the out of box and doing them in ways that can still create their solution. So really in that SMB, where would, where might you see that being a fit, or could be a fit.

Joshua Warren  11:49  
I think if you have a model, a business model that is in some way unique, it's a great fit. And it's a great way to build the value of your company. Because if you're, if you're selling T shirts, and you sell the same T shirts the same way as everybody else, you can go buy something like Shopify. And if you are doing something different, though, and you build build your own customizations onto an open source platform, you're building a competitive advantage.

Darin Newbold  12:17  
So and that's a great point. So what you're saying is, is you're building a different customer experience, so that I as the customer wanting to buy the T shirts, instead of just going looking through the rows of T shirts that I would see picking the size, color and design, there might be some other experience that's created to get me to that T shirt or around that T shirt that is very customized specific to your brand. Yeah, correct. And that way to like looking at your business in that way, and building in that direction. Again, I

Joshua Warren  12:51  
think it builds what a lot of analysts would call a moat around your your business in the sense that if you're using an off the shelf platform, close source subscription type platform, when you get a new feature on your site, while everybody else that buys that platform, just get that feature. If you're using an open source platform, and you're customizing it, you're getting into the code and you're changing the way it works. If you're building unique things, that's starting to build that mode of okay, not, it's not possible to just go out and buy this feature somewhere. It's something that took the vision to build it, and then the budget and the developer hours to put it together.

Darin Newbold  13:28  
So as we kind of start to get this close to wrapping up. I do have a question, though, they just came to mind. And I'm guessing that someone out there that's listening has the same question. All right, Josh, I'm on board. I love this idea. I want to be unique, I want to create a unique experience, but haven't by now most of the cool unique experiences has been created. And, and, and maybe and maybe this is an admittance of the person to say maybe I'm not at that creative or maybe I don't have that gee whiz, great idea. But how about we created a lot of the feature functionality or the things that are going to cause that custom experience in an E commerce way. I don't know what what's left.

Joshua Warren  14:10  
Oh, there's so much left. I would say go back and look at some websites from five years ago and then look at today and just see all the new features but then also,

Darin Newbold  14:19  
it sounds like we have the the topic for another podcast

Joshua Warren  14:22  
I think right there is the the Josh's crystal ball of cool features. But I will say you know in a previous episode, I even joked about how Metaverse is a little bit of an overhyped buzzword right now. But web three and FTS Metaverse, Blockchain all this. All right, we're barely scratching the surface of that in the off the shelf platforms. And I think there's some really cool projects that are still under the radar, basically, that are building on some of these open source commerce platforms and integrating things like

Darin Newbold  14:53  
alright, alright, you sold me, your soulmate. All right. Well, folks, as always, we'd love to have you here. and hope you enjoy Commerce today and we can't wait to talk to you next time. Take care

Transcribed by https://otter.ai