Taking an Open Source Project to Market: A Parable of Sendmail

Many things happen when a long-time open source project is converted to a commercial model. Some of these events are business-oriented and expected: for example, marketing and sales departments appear. Some are less obvious, involving sometimes subtle changes in the way engineering is done. The open source sendmail MTA has been the major MTA on the Internet since 1982. In 1998, as sendmail neared a "success disaster" (where the success of the project outstrips the ability of the development team to support it), a commercial company was formed to develop and support sendmail. The focus of this talk will be on how engineering has changed as a result, as opposed to examining the business model, but will necessarily also cover business-oriented material.