Category: 1.5 Commercial Open Source
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The perils of going from community to commercial open source
The growth and corporate adoption of many community open source projects is hindered by the lack of commercial support. At the same time, well working community open source is a temptation for startups to make a buck by turning the community project into commercial open source. We can currently observe the unraveling of such a…
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Open source is a business strategy not a business model
Following up on related discussions, another common confusion in my opinion is to think that “open source” is a business model. It is not. Open source is a business strategy, in support of a business model. You still need to know how to make money, and it doesn’t happen by giving software away for free.…
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SDN: Is open source competing unfairly?
Commercial open source firms go to market trying to create an “unfair” competitive advantage that lets them win customers more easily than their competitors. So do most other companies. Commercial open source firms do this by bypassing the traditional purchasing process by getting their software into customer companies for free, before the customers even know…
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SE Radio interview on open source business models
Markus Völter of the Software Engineering Radio podcast show interviewed me about open source business models. Why not listen to the Open Source Business Model podcast while running rather than reading it as papers on my website?
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Commercial, professional, and community open source: Resolving the naming confusion
As a researcher, imprecise naming bothers me. The general confusion around the terms commercial open source, professional open source, and community open source warrants closer analysis. First my proposal, then some litmus tests, followed by a bit of history. Commercial open source is software provided as open source where a single legal entity owns the…
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SDN: Selling services for stock open source components…
[…] There is much less demand for open source services than one might have expected. But it is not only the demand-side. The supply of such services is also problematic. Why? Because it is a hard business to be in. Why that? Because there are no juicy profit margins. Now, that needs some explanation. Read…