The Origin Story of The California Open Source Company

At The California Open Source Company, we enable creators to build lasting businesses from their open source projects. Our journey began with SimpleBLE, a project that revealed the challenges of sustaining open source software, inspiring us to build a better way forward.

Challenges of Open Source Sustainability

In early 2020, I needed a reliable Bluetooth Low Energy library for my job, but existing options were outdated, abandoned, or hard to use. Out of frustration, I started building SimpleBLE under an MIT license, the same license everyone was using, but I didn’t give much thought to it. For four years, I put in thousands of hours to improve the library, and it grew naturally as users valued its reliability and shared helpful feedback. In late 2023, my priorities shifted after a job change, and SimpleBLE began to lag, with updates slowing as I focused elsewhere. As companies demanded new features and fixes, we tried sponsorships to keep the project funded. Despite some interest, they raised little money, since the MIT license let companies use fixes for free. This frustration planted the idea that commercialization might be the answer, but we hesitated, unsure about the risks and challenges involved.

High Costs of Commercializing Open Source

When exploring how to commercialize SimpleBLE, we became aware of the obstacles and realized how hard it would be to commit to such an endeavor, given the uncertain payback at the end. Hiring a lawyer to draft a commercial license would have cost more than the expected sales for the first year, with no guarantee that SimpleBLE would earn enough to justify the cost. Incorporation meant dealing with paperwork, compliance requirements and fixed costs that added up quickly. Taxes were confusing and easy to get wrong, especially when every state in the US has different rules and regulations. Selling to larger companies had the additional overhead of vendor forms and certificates. Marketing required testing multiple strategies to learn what worked, often through costly mistakes. The hurdles just didn’t stop coming.

No company offered a complete approach that would lower the barriers to commercialize small projects. Some companies provided sponsorship platforms or subscription tools, but these only solved small parts of the problem. The barriers were not only about money but also about legal, administrative, and operational tasks, and I realized most developers would be unprepared or unwilling to handle them.

Developing a Framework to Simplify Commercialization

With SimpleBLE, we faced the same hurdles as countless developers: a great project at risk of fading because the open source model offered no clear path to sustainability. We wished for a solution that would simplify commercialization, so we set out to build it, the same way I set out to build the BLE library I needed but didn’t exist, and we used SimpleBLE as our test case. By going commercial, we kept the project alive through its first year and added over 1,000 hours of work to improve it, far more than the open source model could then support. We offered free licenses to hobbyists and startups, ensuring the project remained accessible to the community. The experience showed that commercialization could address the economic flaws in open source, but only if the process was made easier and less risky. We created a flexible legal framework that adapts to different business models, validated it with lawyers at a low cost, and designed it to be reusable for other projects. We found that a shared business structure can cover fixed costs like incorporation and compliance, letting developers focus on their work while getting paid directly. This approach also protects developers from liability, reducing the legal risks of commercial software. By grouping developers together, we’ve formed partnerships for sales, marketing, and tools, giving small projects access to opportunities they could not have reached alone. SimpleBLE has proved this model works. It inspired us to build a platform that makes commercialization simple and safe for every developer, not only for us.

Building an Ecosystem for Sustainable Open Source

At The California Open Source Company, we’re working to address the key issue of open source: many projects struggle to stay active without a clear way to fund ongoing development. Our experience with SimpleBLE has shown that commercialization at scale is possible, but only if the process is straightforward for creators.

We are creating an ecosystem where open source software thrives for everyone involved. Creators can keep their projects going with steady revenue, building solutions that last without sacrificing their focus on coding. Enterprises get dependable software backed by active development, ensuring their tools stay secure and up-to-date. Hobbyists gain free access to high-quality projects, while startups find affordable solutions to grow without breaking the bank. SimpleBLE has shown us that a balance is achievable, and now we’re making it possible for every developer to reach the same success, fostering a shared ecosystem where quality and creativity drive progress.

The California Open Source Company is dedicated to empowering creators to build enduring open source projects. Every creator deserves the right tools to make their work last, and we’re here to provide them. By supporting their efforts, we’re strengthening open source for everyone who relies on it, one project at a time.

We’re making open source work for creators and companies alike. Want to be part of what we’re building?