A "business model" can mean a for-profit enterprise as well as an open source project solving a pain point and showcasing your skills. The questions customer development asks can be used for the open source project too, with great effect.
yep! that's how good useful open-source code (especially APIs) are built! I mean dont u want people to actually USE what u took time and effort to write? You may not have written it for money, or to make a business, but you would want people using it. So when you code AFTER knowing what people need, the feeling is way more awesome! i mean think about it, u wanna make something really cool that no one uses? or something everyone agrees on is super cool, and would love to actually use?
I actually spent nearly an year writing a rather powerful and challenging mathmatical reasoning engine (heck it can not only solve but LEARN mathematics!) but i had no users in mind. So i could never explain to people why anyone wud want to use it. and that didnt really feel that good
