Navigating Open Source Success with Ludovic Dubost: Insights into XWiki's Journey

[Carl] Hello and welcome to the SaaS Growth Podcast . This week, we're here with Ludovic Dubost, the founder and CEO of XWiki, an open-source wiki platform that's just celebrated its 20th anniversary. How are you today, Ludovic? [Ludovic] Hi, Carl.

I'm very good. I'm very happy to be here and talk with you about XWiki and open source. [Carl] Thank you so much for being here. Can you give us a rundown of XWiki and how it came to be?

[Ludovic] Oh, so this was a long time ago. XWiki is now more than 20 years old. Initially, I was a user of wikis in my previous companies, using them to help organize my team. When I left that company, I felt ready to create something in the knowledge management space, so I decided to create a new wiki.

I initially thought I’d commercialize the open-source wiki platforms I was using - Twiki, for instance, back in 2003 or 2004 - but they had technical limitations, making them difficult to push to companies as a funded product. So, I wrote my own software, released it in 2004, and started finding people and companies who would use it, eventually developing a business model around it. [Carl] You made the choice to make the software open source, which must make it very difficult to build a monetized business around.

How did you go about tackling that and the profitability challenges of open source? [Ludovic] First, I wouldn’t say open source makes it difficult to do business; rather, it has challenges when it comes to funding and growth. Open source is actually quite capital-efficient. XWiki SAS has never raised any outside money from investors - we grew based on the revenue from clients.

At the start, we did some client services to fund improvements to the platform. I had some personal funds to begin with, but early funding came from customers who needed specific features. Over time, though, the challenge became moving from a service model to a sustainable software model, where we had a real offer to fund and support the software continuously. But XWiki SAS has been profitable and growing from the beginning, and we've focused on educating customers about the open-source model.

[Carl] What other challenges does open source bring as a business model? You mentioned the difficulty of finding the right approach to monetize XWiki as software rather than as a service. [Ludovic] One difference compared to proprietary companies is that partnerships can be trickier - especially with cloud companies that host software but don’t build it. Our approach was to build our own SaaS offering rather than rely on those partnerships.

Another challenge is that customers often assume everything is free with open source. Educating customers about how open source works and the benefits of using a reputable provider is crucial. Our business has been sustainable because we chose to avoid venture capital and focus on ethical business practices, a steady growth model, and finding clients who value what we offer. [Carl] You mentioned ethical business practices at XWiki.

What does that mean to you, and how does it influence the way you run your business? [Ludovic] Open source itself is part of ethical business for me. It’s about giving individuals sovereignty over software, which is increasingly controlled by a few very large companies. This is even more of a concern in Europe, where we rely on software from foreign companies.

Sovereignty is key, and open source empowers individuals and countries to control their software. Beyond open source, ethical practices mean being transparent with employees and customers. Internally, we apply open-source values to be fair and open, ensuring employees understand company decisions. This transparency extends to customers, with whom we aim to build true partnerships.

If we don’t behave well, our work can be forked, and customers aren’t locked in the same way as with proprietary software. This keeps us honest. [Carl] What other strategies or business decisions have been important to XWiki’s growth in the open-source space? [Ludovic] One critical decision was to avoid venture capital because venture capital expectations for growth often push companies away from open-source principles.

Venture capitalists expect rapid revenue multiplication, which can conflict with maintaining an ethical, community-focused business. Another important decision was that while we may offer paid modules, the code itself remains open-source, letting customers choose to buy the ready-made package or build it themselves. This approach maintains the integrity of the open-source model while enabling us to generate revenue. [Carl] In your experience, what are some of the underhanded practices you've seen from companies trying to monetize open source?

[Ludovic] The biggest problem I see is when companies change licenses, especially when they switch to closed licenses after growing their user base with open-source principles. Some companies, like Elasticsearch and Redis, expanded their communities, and then, to increase monetization, restricted access by changing their licenses. From my point of view, if you want a business-source or delayed open-source license, that should be clear from the start. Changing after luring a community into thinking it’s open-source feels unfair.

We see this even outside open source, like with OpenAI, which initially operated as a nonprofit and then pivoted to become a for-profit without continuing to publish research. When companies do this, it’s not a fair business practice, in my opinion. [Carl] That makes sense. Changing a product’s openness midway after building a community on that foundation does seem unfair.

But let’s get back to XWiki. With a customizable and modular platform like yours, how do you manage different visions and prevent "too many cooks" from disrupting the core vision? [Ludovic] In open-source software like XWiki, we don’t get too many individual contributors making big feature requests. However, we do have customers who request custom developments.

The key is balancing customer needs with the core software’s purpose. Sometimes we have to refuse a feature or keep it as an external extension instead of adding it to the core. Modularity helps here; XWiki is customizable, but we’re selective about what goes into the core. This lets us offer flexibility without losing our vision.

Maintaining a modular platform does create some challenges, especially for upgrades, but it’s essential for meeting diverse customer needs. [Carl] Wikis are often seen as tools for evergreen content, so how does XWiki handle short-term projects, and how do you archive content after a project ends? [Ludovic] When I mention short-term, I don’t mean temporary content but rather collaboration features for ongoing work - real-time editing, comments, annotations, and checklists. For example, we use XWiki to organize events, with checklists to track tasks, and that page can also store budgets and costs for future reference.

Wikis allow this balance between collaboration and long-term knowledge management. With wikis, you can track what was done and use it to improve future work. Wikis are unique in their ability to link relevant information across spaces, which traditional tools struggle to achieve. [Carl] That makes sense.

To keep a wiki current and integrated with daily work, you have to make it a central tool. If not, the documentation lags behind, similar to the problem with code documentation. [Ludovic] Exactly. We tell our developers to create documentation alongside the feature itself; otherwise, it’s too easy to deprioritize.

Although developers may not be the best for end-user documentation, we believe they should understand what they’re building and provide initial documentation. Later, a documentation specialist can refine it. That’s the collaborative approach we use with wikis: developers create, and others refine it, making sure both technical accuracy and user readability are achieved. [Carl] One last topic - you briefly mentioned CryptPad.

Can you explain what it is and how it aligns with XWiki’s ethics? [Ludovic] CryptPad is another product we created. It’s an encrypted, real-time collaboration tool focused on privacy. Initially, we developed a new real-time editing algorithm, which let us remove the server as a required intermediary for data synchronization.

This innovation allowed us to offer end-to-end encryption, protecting users' privacy by ensuring their data is unreadable on the server. CryptPad is our response to the growing issue of online data surveillance. It’s similar to Google Docs in collaboration features, but with the assurance that user data isn’t exposed to third parties. [Carl] That sounds excellent.

Real-time encrypted collaboration is pretty rare. Where can people find more information about XWiki and CryptPad? [Ludovic] They can find XWiki at xwiki.com and CryptPad at cryptpad.

fr. To connect with me personally, I’m on Mastodon and LinkedIn under the username “ldubost.” And if anyone is ever in Paris, feel free to reach out! [Carl] Thanks again for joining us, Ludovic.

It’s been a fascinating discussion. For everyone else, we’ll see you next week.