You Can’t Make Money from Open Source?
November 8th, 2004 by Adam Cuothe
1. Open For Business
2. OpenMFG
3. ComPiere
“Consider that Free and open source software models, as opposed to the traditional proprietary models, may afford end user organizations a direct line to getting the software that is most well-adapted to their specific needs and at a lower cost. If that tends to be the case, one should ask how it is that the groups providing Free and open source enterprise software model their businesses to support that notion.”
I found this series of interviews by J. Chalifour at a web site called the Free and Open Source Evaluation Center. The interviewer ran an overly long series of open-ended conversations with the founders of three prominent open source enterprise projects. Truth-be-told one of them, OpenMFG, isn’t open source so it’s a bit disingenuous to include them… still they seem to do everything on top of open source systems. Ok, so, one does ask how it is that groups providing FOSS do model their businessesses. People ask me all the time, why anyone would think selling open source software is a good idea. Of course they typically laugh it off as ridiculous before I get a chance to say anything interesting. But the proof that such businesses can be successful is overwhelming and I find it ridiculous that so few “C” level business people will pause for a moment to pay attention to this economic phenomenon. If nothing else, these interviews show three rather different approaches to fostering an active business based on a wide net of potential customers. Examine them carefully!
August 9th, 2005 at 9:35 am
It is impressive how lately, lotsa different companies are offering analyses on open source services. I do not know what that signifies in a bigger picture. Don’t proprietary companies offer these too? Doesn’t it just mean that the open source ones aren’t going to be able to make as much money?