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Can Montreal Become an Open Source Startup Hub?

nextmontreal.com

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Re: Can Montreal Become an Open Source Startup Hub?

#41

Post by RobotGrrl »

Interesting discussion. I make a lot of software for Arduinos for my robots and publish it open source on my blog. I rarely get contacted from fellow Canadians (let alone fellow Montrealers). >_>

Arduino is a super example of open source, so if Montreal were to be a "hub", that would entail that a lot more people would be excited about Open Source and would be downloading the code or getting in contact, right?

I find that there's not enough excitement yet. There are ways we could garner excitement, by investing in small companies, creating open source hockey players that can shoot the puck at the back of the net, and gaining more media attention, harnessing power through local politics. Long-term thinking, it may happen!

Re: Can Montreal Become an Open Source Startup Hub?

#42

Post by arach »

bravura wrote: post #30

[disclosure: I'm a personal friend of the author of this article.] I lived in Montreal for three years, or four winters, depending upon how you count. I believe that Montreal has the most important element necessary to become an open-source startup hub, namely a lot of good talent. The language barrier exists, but is not strong enough that it has hindered any open-source efforts in Montreal (as far as I've seen). The…

You've made some pretty awesome observations.

Having said that :) I'd like to point out that there were more than 700 attendees at StartupCamp last month. A relatively good portion of those people were not skeptical at all about business ambition. They have embraced entrepreneurship! They are opportunistic!

I think what happens when you have a social circle that contains successful entrepreneurs is you get better at business development and salesmanship by osmosis. You are more likely to pitch a million dollar deal if you're friends with a guy who did that a week ago.

Another commenter pointed out, Montreal use to compete on price and probably still does. I think it will take a while for the low cost crap to leave our bones. But that's already starting to happen ... so we'll see.

>>>Note that I have found that Montrealais ARE very opportunistic when it comes to social entrepreneurism. Witness social events The Strip Spelling Bee http://stripspellingbee.blogspot.com/ (and other productions by Perpetual Emotion Machine Productions, like Slow Dance Night), musical innovation particularly in low-fi and DIY subgeneres, and non-profit activism like Head and Hands.

Hell yeah!

Re: Can Montreal Become an Open Source Startup Hub?

#43

Post by sedachv »

olalonde wrote: post #2

Glad to see there are fellow Montrealers on HN. As a totally unrelated side note, it would be nice if it was possible to create "groups" on GitHub so that smaller communities can unite their forces on open source projects. It would also make it easier to discover related projects.

Check out http://devlabmtl.org/

I haven't been yet, but planning on going soon.

Re: Can Montreal Become an Open Source Startup Hub?

#45

Post by danudey »

arach wrote: post #33
imack wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding to your point, it is very important to note that France French != Quebec French. When a Montrealer goes to Paris and starts speaking French, the Parisian will get confused and respond in English if they know it.

I think you're exaggerating. Parisians may tease Quebecers, but that's just to keep themselves in teasing shape. Teasing is a sport, you gotta practice. Most French people will be able to understand most Montrealers. It should be noted that France itself has many regional accents that are quite strong. Also to be noted, there is a steady flow of young French people immigrating to Montreal.

Most French people will be able to understand most Montrealers sometimes, in the same way that someone from Britain would be able to understand a Cajun sometimes. The language is very divergent, with franglais words sprinkled here or there, shortened words, differing word usage, etc.

On top of that, for the reasons above as well as others (including their accent), people from France really dislike listening to people from Montreal speak 'French', and will avoid it whenever possible. This is similar to the way Francophones from Montreal will speak English rather than French to an Acadian, because their accent is really just that bad.

Re: Can Montreal Become an Open Source Startup Hub?

#46

Post by danudey »

jeromegn wrote: post #20
imack wrote: post #3

"As for talented potential employees… that’s tougher" No kidding. What Montreal has going is pretty impressive, but Quebec has an abnormally high personal income tax rate and the language issue is always going to hang like a cloud over it. I know everyone in Montreal speaks english, but the default is French and all public signs are too. While some Canadians will put up with that because our country is founded on pla…

Personal income tax may be higher, but the advantages far outweigh the cost. I'm thinking about: free healthcare, extremely low electricity cost, cheap rent (pretty much half as much as SF's rent) and everything that comes with living in a major city. RE French: Ever learned a new programming language to go work somewhere? What's the difference? You don't have to be fluent in French, you have to understand it enough…

You can get all of those benefits by living in Vancouver (though rent isn't as cheap here, apartments and suites are much better maintained). On top of that, the weather is better, the people are friendlier, and you don't have to worry as much about not getting a position solely because your language skills aren't up to snuff.

Re: Can Montreal Become an Open Source Startup Hub?

#47

Post by sedachv »

imack wrote: post #3

"As for talented potential employees… that’s tougher" No kidding. What Montreal has going is pretty impressive, but Quebec has an abnormally high personal income tax rate and the language issue is always going to hang like a cloud over it. I know everyone in Montreal speaks english, but the default is French and all public signs are too. While some Canadians will put up with that because our country is founded on pla…

Montreal companies have absolutely no problem hiring programmers who don't speak French (I'm the sole anglophone at my company, and they found me).

The real losers end up being the native Quebecers. There are really good programmers here working for pennies because they don't know enough English to move to or contract for companies in the Bay Area or NYC. This is true for a lot of other knowledge/creative professionals in Montreal as well.

If you look at Montreal neighborhoods and professions, you find that the ones where management and finance dominates are also the ones with mostly anglophones (of course Westmount dominates), and the ones with the highest incomes. The irony of francization is that it is creating an economic ghetto out of the native French speakers.

Re: Can Montreal Become an Open Source Startup Hub?

#48

Post by neilk »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #19
evanprodromou wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree. I think that the bilingualism is a strength. After all, the strongest Open Source markets in the world today are international. If Montreal can represent a bridge between North America and Europe, there's an opportunity for synergy there.

How will Montreal represent a bridge to anyplace besides France? While France isn't nothing (60 million people with a bit less disposable income than the US), USA+Canada+France is less than 20% bigger than USA+Canada.

In my experience, Montrealers develop for an international market by default. Everyone knows the domestic market will be too small to sustain whatever you're doing. And your initial business plan will have to involve two languages and probably two currencies and two legal regimes -- at minimum. So in some ways it's even more internationally-minded than a small EC country.

I was very surprised when I started working in the US and encountered this concept of "internationalization". ;)

I'm not saying it's a killer advantage, but it could be leveraged.

Re: Can Montreal Become an Open Source Startup Hub?

#49

Post by neilk »

The premise doesn't make sense to me. Open source is a business model, not a technology. How do you build a "hub" out of that?

I think you are arguing that familiarity with the business model is transferable across organizations, but that seems dubious. At least so far, there has never been a "hub" based on an investing or management talent pool. It's always been based on the employee talent pool -- for the Bay Area, electronics and software.

FYI, I'm a Montrealer by birth, San Franciscan by choice.

Re: Can Montreal Become an Open Source Startup Hub?

#50

Post by arach »

guinness wrote: post #10

I've worked for a couple of startups in Montreal. Their biggest competitive advantage was always that they could do things for less. This is because wages are low and so is the cost of living. I don't think that undercutting your competitors is a viable long term business strategy since you end up being cheap labor. This also discourages innovation since the focus is on copying what someone has already done and doing…

> it needs to change this cheap labor mindset into one of innovation. I agree with your point that Montreal needs to change its cheap labor mindset, but I'm pretty sure the innovation part is and always was very strong here.

Thankfully, Canada's currency has reached parity with the US Dollar, in part because of Canada's stability during the clusterf*ck recession but mostly thanks to our country's vast natural resources. The dollar parity is forcing a lot of people to rethink the cheap labor approach, whether they like it or not. It was not so long ago that the US dollar was 1.5 Canadian dollars, but wages and costs were much less than 1.5x. The arbitrage opportunity was way too easy to ignore. That's over.

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