Open Source Is Marketing

Many companies treat open source as an engineering decision. They ask: * Should we open source this project? * What license should we use? * Will competitors copy us? These are valid questions. But they miss a more important one: How will people discover the product? Open source dramatically reduces the cost of trust. Users can inspect the code. Try the product. Contribute improvements. Share it with others. Without speaking to sales. Without signing a contract. Without making a purchasing decision. As a result, open source often functions as marketing. Not because it advertises the product. But because it distributes the product. The repository becomes content. The contributors become advocates. The community becomes distribution. Many successful developer-focused companies built awareness long before monetization by making something useful and public. The code was the channel.