Open Source Businesses - WordPress & block.one

It's important to consider the business propositions of new businesses in the blockchain space because there are many deceptive offerings that may try to take advantage of you. If you plan to invest your time, money, or other efforts into new companies and their take on the blockchain space, I recommend you consider their future roadmap, progression, and overall business plan - more than just their whitepaper or charts.

In my opinion, block.one appears to share a similar business plan for EOS that the founders of WordPress had.

WordPress

WordPress powers 28% of the internet.

WordPress has enabled millions of people to publish websites and content on the internet pretty easily. It’s become ubiquitous to the internet and its simplicity, power, and support make it a great platform for anyone to get started with creating a website.

WordPress is a great example of how a successful open source business can be created. As large as the internet is, WordPress is currently running 28% of websites. Whether you think that’s good or not, it is certainly a testament to the software and software-as-a-service businesses.

wordpress.org (software)

WordPress was created by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little in 2003 and has since grown into the open source behemoth that it is today. Without focusing too much on the open source nature, the benefits mostly include a large, community-drive development team and the freedom to use the code however you want.

wordpress.com (service)

Wordpress.org contains the self-hosted, open source code and documentation, while wordpress.com is a service from Automattic created in 2005 that offers a tiered pricing hosted version of the open source software, making it extremely simple to setup. They also offer other free or otherwise affordable addon services to their customers.

block.one

block.one is the company currently working on the open source crypto application / contract software, EOS. The tech lead is a proven developer in the blockchain space with his previous projects: BitShares, Graphene, and Steem. The rest of the team also has experience with similar technology and projects.

eos.io (software)

EOS is an application platform based on decentralized blockchain technology. It will act as an operating system for applications written on it (in the highly-performant WebAssembly). It provides accounts, authentication, databases, asynchronous communication and scheduling apps - all features necessary for a successful and resilient distributed ledger technology.

block.one (service)

block.one provides end-to-end solutions to bring businesses onto the blockchain from strategic planning to product deployment.

Similar to the WordPress service, the original authors of the proposed EOS software will also offer a similar business strategy. They are not selling the software. The original EOS software was funded from venture capitalists and not the "initial coin offering." While they will focus on servicing their clients with their own application software, EOS, their website also lists Ethereum as a tool for their solutions.

Open Source Philosophy

Open source technology has enabled many great things to be created much quicker than would have been in a closed source environment. Anyone can contribute to the project by fixing bugs or implementing new features. Both WordPress and block.one have a philosophy on their projects.

WordPress hopes to promote projects that are licensed under the GNU Public License, freely available and open software, accessible, extendible without modifying the core code.

block.one has outlined a similar philosophy through the use of a performance-based, scalable, and self-governing software. The software and terms of use will be defined by those who use it.

Conclusion

While the blockchain space is still trying to figure out who will be their WordPress, I believe EOS will be a solid contender considering the people behind the initial software, their communication with the community, and the merit of the project and how it approaches being a platform upon which apps are developed. block.one shares similarities with the business structure of the founders of WordPress, a large player in website publishing. The business plan of companies in this speculative space, their ability to deliver, and many other factors are important to consider if you plan on investing your time, money, and effort.

I’m extremely excited to see what great things block.one and other developers can create for the platform.