FOSS4G NA 2023 | Building FilmDrop - Dan Pilone

Summary:

Building FilmDrop, an open-source platform for Earth observation, involved overcoming challenges and learning key principles. The journey included a shift from a small company mindset to growing a business, with open source as part of the strategy.

Highlights:

🌐 FilmDrop is an open-source geospatial data lake solution supporting commercial satellite operators, the United Nations, and maintaining petabytes of data in AWS.

💡 Lessons Learned: Building what customers need, adapting code for different customer needs, and making strategic decisions about forking or enhancing existing codebases.

🔄 Adaptation Challenge: Recognizing that customers differed from NASA's needs, requiring a decision to fork or enhance existing codebases.

💰 Business Investment: Investing $1.5 million in FilmDrop development underscored the importance of having a business plan for open-source projects.

🌱 Open Source and Business: Emphasizing that open-source development without a business plan is a donation, and businesses need a clear justification for open-sourcing work.