Guiding an Open Source-Based Business Through Troubled Times – Francis Dinha – ESW #391
This interview is a bit different from our norm. We talk to the founder and CEO of OpenVPN about what it is like to operate a business based on open source, particularly through trying times like the recent pandemic. How do you compete when your competitors are free to build products using your software and IP? It seems like an oxymoron, but an open source-based business actually has some significant advantages over the closed source commercial approach.
Guest
Francis Dinha is the CEO and Founder of OpenVPN, Inc, a leading network security company with enterprise solutions for remote access and more. Dinha grew up under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and managed to escape in the 1970’s to Sweden. There, he achieved his Master of Science in computer engineering from the University of Linkoping. He spent the next several decades working in technology, contributing his skill and leadership to major projects across the world.
His work in tech has consistently been about building more secure and efficient communications — in short, bringing people together. He has served as an architect and broadband system engineer at Ericsson, where he worked both in the U.S. and Sweden. Francis was also the founder and CTO of PacketStream, a company whose patented technology enabled dynamic Quality of Service provisioning of IP networks. Then, before he co-founded OpenVPN, Francis was the CEO at Iraq Development and Investment Projects where he played a principal role in architecting a joint venture to win the mobile communication license in Iraq. Today he continues to lead OpenVPN as they provide enterprise network security solutions for today’s businesses.
