In Open Source software, competition works differently than in proprietary software.

Companies compete through their own products and services, but they all depend on the same commons: the software, the community, the project's reputation, and the shared work that helps people trust and adopt it.

That shared foundation creates a different kind of responsibility: sharing a commons means sharing the work of keeping it strong.

The Open Source companies I admire most show up in two ways. They compete on the merits of their own products: features, support, and price. And they help sustain the commons: through code, documentation, security, marketing, events, education, sponsorships, and more.

Judge companies by what they do

Over the past year, Pantheon, one of Acquia's competitors in the Drupal market, has focused much of its messaging on attacking Acquia, including making our private equity ownership part of its story.

I have no quarrel with Pantheon's products or the people who build them. Competition is healthy. My concern is with marketing that attacks another Drupal company, often with misleading or unwarranted messaging.

I've spent nearly twenty years building Acquia through different stages and ownership models. Acquia has grown from a startup into a company backed first by venture capital and later by private equity. Every ownership model creates different pressures, but ownership determines far from everything.

Customers don't choose a platform because of an ownership model. They choose it because it works, because they can get help, and because they trust the platform will keep getting better. In Open Source, that trust depends on the health of the commons behind it.

Customers, partners, community members, and end users are not helped by vendor attacks. They are helped when companies build better products, contribute to Drupal, and help more people adopt it.

License permits, stewardship grows

For an Open Source company, the test is not only what they build for themselves. It is what they help build for everyone.

An Open Source license defines what companies are allowed to do. It sets the floor. Contribution is not required.

Above that floor is a social contract. No one enforces it, but every healthy Open Source ecosystem depends on it.

Stewardship is what companies choose to do beyond the license: contribute code, fund security work, support maintainers, improve documentation, sponsor events, promote adoption, and more.

Drupal thrives because people and organizations honor the social contract and choose to do more than the license requires.

Contribution is one measure of stewardship

Drupal.org credit is one public signal of that commitment. Acquia is the largest single corporate contributor to Drupal, but the wider community contributes far more than any one company.

In the past year, Acquia engineers earned 26,331 weighted issue credits, plus 164 from the Drupal Security Team.

These contributions are good for Acquia, for Drupal, and for every organization that builds on Drupal, including our competitors.

In the same period, Pantheon earned 243 weighted issue credits, plus 2 security credits. Credits don't capture every form of contribution, and Pantheon contributes in other ways too. Even so, the gap is substantial.

What we let pass becomes the social contract

I don't usually write publicly about competitors. It's not how I want to spend my voice.

Before writing this, I asked myself a simple question: if a major company contributing to Drupal were under sustained attack from another major Drupal company, would I feel a responsibility as Drupal's founder and project lead to speak up?

I would.

The fact that Acquia is the company being attacked made me slower to respond, but it doesn't change the answer.

When companies built on Drupal spend their energy attacking each other instead of growing the project, it bothers me. It's not good for Drupal.

I'm not writing this believing it will change anyone's marketing and sales tactics. I'm writing it because what we let pass now will shape what is acceptable in Drupal years from now.

Communities like ours evolve their social contract through moments like this, when we say in public what we expect of each other. If this post contributes to a healthier social contract taking hold, I'm happy.

Compete on merit, but grow the commons

Every company that builds on Drupal depends on the same commons. Every company has a choice about whether to help sustain it, and how much. Drupal gets stronger when more of us invest in it.

My invitation to every company that builds on Drupal is simple: let's compete on the merits of our products and services, not by attacking each other. Let's serve customers well, contribute where we can, and put our energy into helping more organizations choose Drupal in the first place.

That is the social contract I'd like all of us to live by. I want Acquia to be judged by that same standard: what we ship, how well we serve customers, how much we contribute, and whether Drupal is stronger because of our work.

Not by who owns us. Not by claims made about us. By whether we keep building, contributing, and helping the ecosystem grow.

I have said what I wanted to say, and I won't turn this into an ongoing debate or respond to social media comments on this. My focus is on building and contributing.