Frappe offsites (we call them “Refresh”) are a great way to connect with remote folks from the team, build deeper bonds and revisit our core values and purpose. One of the core values at Frappe is “open source”. Every software application that we publish is 100% open source. Why does this matter? This offsite we decided to go deeper into this topic.

Having tackled this question several times earlier, I knew that the answers are all too apparent and multiple, but then I realised that it is not even the question. I don’t think there are any doubts about why open source is better (look at Linux, Python, Android etc), but the real question is that, why Frappe, a commercial entity whose goal is to maximise its own gain, is creating open source software, where the benefits accrue to others. The answer to this is somewhere else. It is in the dichotomy between pragmatism and principles.

Whenever we are faced with a dilemma, we can apply two “lenses” to decide what is the right thing to do. One is “pragmatism” - which is based on this idea of doing the thing that seems more appropriate or beneficial based on the outcome. The other is “principle” - do what you think is principally correct, no matter what the outcome is. It does not matter if it is beneficial or appropriate. In most cases, the principally right thing to do is also the pragmatic thing to do. For example, I use public transport to work because it is principally right (less pollution) and also pragmatically right (the fastest commute to work).

But often in life, our principles seem to be in conflict with the pragmatic way of working. Also, what is pragmatic is usually not only the more beneficial thing but also what seems to be the most appropriate in the context of “generally accepted societal behaviour”. For example, in Mumbai, it is accepted behaviour for bikes to not wait at the red light. I mean bikes are not such a hindrance to pedestrians, and poor folks are not sitting in air-conditioned cabins, so they are almost like pedestrians. So a biker who decides to wait (on principle) at the red light, will be considered as a stupid person. Similarly at some point when I was younger, paying your taxes was considered as stupid. But both these things in principle are right. Principled folks seem stupid to others because they cause inconvenience. In Frappe, I am always pushing ideas like using trains over flights which is often inconvenient to people. What I really want to establish is that people who follow principles are generally at the short end of judgement because they challenge “norms”.

On the other hand, humans tend to have great respect for people who follow principles to the extreme. Gandhi led India’s freedom struggle on the principle of non-violence and was considered a saint by many. Consider this fact. Nathuram Godse had tried and failed to kill Gandhi four times before he finally succeeded. In response to this, Gandhi not only did not try and get him arrested, but also invited him to stay with him for eight days so that he could have a dialogue with his killer. What makes Gandhi a mahatma (great soul) is his steadfast commitment to non violence even in the face of death.

The world today is run on the dominant ideology of capitalism. Capitalism is an extremely pragmatic ideology. It puts primacy on the wealth someone has accumulated as a measure of morality. You will do anything for a person who has money without asking where that money comes from. The moment you enter into a “legal transaction”, you are absolved of all morality. Just want to clarify that I am not saying that capitalism is evil, but the capitalist world cares very little about the colour of your money, only its outcome. In this world, finding people who are “principled” is extremely hard. I urge you to look into your own surroundings and also find public figures who you think are very principled. You will realise that there are not so many people. Principled people are rare, and in these capitalistic times, even rarer.

So coming back to our topic of open source, the question is not whether open source is beneficial to society (it is), but how far you will go to uphold this principle, especially in the face of the pragmatism that capitalism brings. The way principles get evaluated is also on the basis of their long term utility and that only. Hence you should be willing to give up short term gains if your model of decision making is principled. Non violence is a great principle because the world would be such a safer place for ideas to flourish if there was no threat of violence. Open source is a great principle because ensuring that all knowledge is open and free, makes it accessible to a large number of people and enables them to achieve their own goals in life. The question therefore really is about how principled you are. In case of non-violence, how much injustice are you willing accept? In the case of open source, how much capital are you willing to let go for that principle?

Coming back to Frappe, we have chosen to take a very principled stand for open source, no matter what the outcome. In the initial years, our cloud application was not open source because we did not think it was necessary for our main application ERPNext. But at some point, we decided to all-in on the principle. Most of the open source applications managed by companies, whose primary revenue comes from these applications, have compromised open source in some way or other, be it Odoo or MongoDB, but Frappe has resisted this so far. This is what makes us truly stand out and respected, not only in the community but also in our own eyes.

While pragmatism buys us comforts and power, principles buy us respect. Also when it comes to principles there is a huge difference between 99% or 100%. The best example my colleague Aditya gives is that when it comes to marital relationships, 100% faithfulness is very different from 99% faithfulness. The adherence to principles with full faith is why Frappe stands out in the ecosystem. We believe our principles matter more to us than short term profits and this is the right thing to do. In the very long future, it is clear the world will be much better off because of those who stood by this principle.