Observations about making money from open source
Open source is a great thing and I've personally benefited tremendously from it. It has let me deepen my knowledge, given me entire software platforms to invest my energies in, and has opened up a wide landscape of job opportunities. For a company though, it's pretty challenging to make money from it, and I recently I got around to thinking what successful companies in open source have done.
Arguably, Red Hat is the most successful open source software company out there. They came to mind not only because their product portfolio is mostly based on open source or that they've been around for a long time (relatively speaking), but because I actually use their products and find value that I willingly pay for. Good for them. But I wanted to figure out what it was they did in very general terms, because I'm definitely not going to try to take them head on.
Open source software has its strengths and weaknesses, where the strengths and the value produced often tend to accrue to the users and programmers of open source software, and the weaknesses plague them. Switch this around to the point of view of a company and you can actually get the opposite scenario: the strengths of open source software make it difficult for traditional software companies to make money, while the weaknesses in open source present an opportunity for an enlightened or creative software company to step in and fill the value void.
The strength in open source software is drawn from its unrestricted use and the consequences of unrestricted use. Anybody can just take the software, make changes to it, and repackage it. There are no restrictions on the use and distribution of the software. And since anybody has access to change the software, they often do — and the software often experiences a lot of change in a short period of time. In short, open source software is pretty great if you're a user: you can take it and do with it what you like, and there are always new features coming out so you never get bored or have to be stuck with the same old thing for long.
The weaknesses of open source software are analogous to its strengths. You could say that it's just picking up the other side of the same stick. Sure, open source software is easy to change and great for sharing, but when everyone's allowed to do this, there's a strong tendency towards chaos. Some efforts, like the Linux kernel or Mozilla, have very strong centralized cores that have survived challenges, but many others like XFree86/XOrg and FreeBSD/DragonFlyBSD have had very public internal debates. The fast pace of development also has its downside: frequent updates to existing software come out, but they come at such a quick pace and have not been well-tested. It's a hit or miss proposition when upgrading any reasonably important server to the latest version of a software package: it could break other software packages that haven't kept up. How does one get access to bug fixes or security patches and be assured that there are no unintended side effects?
Based on these observations and what Red Hat (and others in the industry) have done, here are a few guidelines on trying to make money from open source software.
Don't try to sell value that you didn't create
It's not a moral recommendation but a practical one: even if you tried to sell a repackaged version of what other people produced, nobody would buy it, because it's available elsewhere for free. You shouldn't just repackage the software and sell it like you would a traditional software package. Technically, you could repackage it for convenience, but you won't be able to make much money by charging high prices for your software. So there goes that plan.
Don't expect to sell value that someone else in the community can create/duplicate
Now, it's fine if you want to make enhancements to a piece of open source software to contribute something back to the community. Many companies do this: IBM, Red Hat, Novell, and Sun, just to name a few. Users really win big with open source software, because any feature in it will be available for free. Unfortunately, if you as a company try to tack something on to the project and sell it, your competitive advantage quickly erodes because you have to open up the source code (at least when using the GNU General Public License).
I say don't expect to sell value here because you can certainly try, and in some cases, succeed. But I'd say don't count on it. If you do want to try, make sure you enhance software that's covered by the BSD license, not the GNU GPL. If you choose the latter, you'll certainly have to open up the source code to any modifications you make. With BSD licensed software, you can keep it closed but include a note of acknowledgment in your software's licensing information.
Focus on what open source software finds difficult or impossible to address
With that said, open source software still has its weak points. All the openness can and does lead to fragmentation and inconsistency. Because people working on a project work only on what they want to rather than have a boss dictate items to them, a lot open source software lacks that extra polish that you'd expect from a consumer- or business-ready product.
I have a hunch that this is why open source programming tools are so clever and refined, while open source products meant for consumers seems to have a hard time getting past alpha or beta quality. Pretty much any open source program that a programmer would use on a regular basis and use heavily is bound to be very well done. Any rough edges are quickly smoothed out. But when a tool is built for non-programmers, the overwhelming tendency is for it to languish in mediocrity and stay under the radar of the wider community.
The business opportunities in open source software are rooted in the fact that open source developers overwhelmingly favor working on things that they want to work on. This means that the parts that aren't so fun are left undone. There is this desert where a programmer's passion only occasionally meanders — but it is wide open for businesses to step in, where another incentive which many of us are very familiar with, money, can take hold and flourish like native desert flora.
Where grassroots open source development stops, profitable enterprise begins. Here are some ways to make money from open source.
Client interactions and case-specific integration/support. It's fun to write new software, but not so fun to make sure that it works for every single person out there. Fortunately for the businessperson with an interest in open source, there are people who are willing to pay in order to get open source software working for them. Someone once said that open source software is only free if your time is worth nothing. There's truth in this, but that time can be dramatically reduced while avoiding being locked into closed source, proprietary software. Red Hat, Novell, IBM, and Sun make some decent cash through support contracts and servicing.
Subscriptions to updates that are well-tested and certified. There are software updates, and there are software updates that are guaranteed to work. I think Red Hat was extremely clever to set up their subscription system, and I admire it because I know that the updates coming from it aren't going to break anything. They do the hard work and make 95% margins on subscriptions. I can get on with my day rather than worrying about properly upgrading my server. It's unquestionably a win-win situation.
Coherent visual/brand identity that promises a certain expectation of quality. The open source community is vibrant, but it's also prone to fragmentation. Moreover, the traditional business practice of building a sustained competitive advantage through branding still stands in this new world of open source software. A brand still holds sway, and still serves as a focal point for trust. Novell, Red Hat, and Mozilla Firefox are highly respected open source flag bearers. It's really good once you get to that point, but, as in times past, building a brand requires a lot of hard work over many years.
Provide a stable platform: still open, but rarely changed because it has to work. There are two big problems with open source platforms: fragmentation and rapid change. Red Hat and Novell provide Linux distributions that can serve as stable platforms on which to build. They're infrequently updated and tightly specified. Ubuntu also has a Long Term Support (LTS) version of its releases, meant for the same purpose. It can be very rewarding to a company when it has control of a popular platform that holds a lot of developer mindshare. The vast majority of developers just want whatever they're building on to be predictable and for people to use their software. Providing a stable platform, trusted by developers and freely available to users, is a great way to establish thought leadership and make a name for your business. It yields a lot of advantages if you can get to the point where you are the trusted caretaker of a platform, but like branding, it's hard work and it's a long process only for the very committed.
Arguably, Red Hat is the most successful open source software company out there. They came to mind not only because their product portfolio is mostly based on open source or that they've been around for a long time (relatively speaking), but because I actually use their products and find value that I willingly pay for. Good for them. But I wanted to figure out what it was they did in very general terms, because I'm definitely not going to try to take them head on.
Open source software has its strengths and weaknesses, where the strengths and the value produced often tend to accrue to the users and programmers of open source software, and the weaknesses plague them. Switch this around to the point of view of a company and you can actually get the opposite scenario: the strengths of open source software make it difficult for traditional software companies to make money, while the weaknesses in open source present an opportunity for an enlightened or creative software company to step in and fill the value void.
The strength in open source software is drawn from its unrestricted use and the consequences of unrestricted use. Anybody can just take the software, make changes to it, and repackage it. There are no restrictions on the use and distribution of the software. And since anybody has access to change the software, they often do — and the software often experiences a lot of change in a short period of time. In short, open source software is pretty great if you're a user: you can take it and do with it what you like, and there are always new features coming out so you never get bored or have to be stuck with the same old thing for long.
The weaknesses of open source software are analogous to its strengths. You could say that it's just picking up the other side of the same stick. Sure, open source software is easy to change and great for sharing, but when everyone's allowed to do this, there's a strong tendency towards chaos. Some efforts, like the Linux kernel or Mozilla, have very strong centralized cores that have survived challenges, but many others like XFree86/XOrg and FreeBSD/DragonFlyBSD have had very public internal debates. The fast pace of development also has its downside: frequent updates to existing software come out, but they come at such a quick pace and have not been well-tested. It's a hit or miss proposition when upgrading any reasonably important server to the latest version of a software package: it could break other software packages that haven't kept up. How does one get access to bug fixes or security patches and be assured that there are no unintended side effects?
Based on these observations and what Red Hat (and others in the industry) have done, here are a few guidelines on trying to make money from open source software.
Don't try to sell value that you didn't create
It's not a moral recommendation but a practical one: even if you tried to sell a repackaged version of what other people produced, nobody would buy it, because it's available elsewhere for free. You shouldn't just repackage the software and sell it like you would a traditional software package. Technically, you could repackage it for convenience, but you won't be able to make much money by charging high prices for your software. So there goes that plan.
Don't expect to sell value that someone else in the community can create/duplicate
Now, it's fine if you want to make enhancements to a piece of open source software to contribute something back to the community. Many companies do this: IBM, Red Hat, Novell, and Sun, just to name a few. Users really win big with open source software, because any feature in it will be available for free. Unfortunately, if you as a company try to tack something on to the project and sell it, your competitive advantage quickly erodes because you have to open up the source code (at least when using the GNU General Public License).
I say don't expect to sell value here because you can certainly try, and in some cases, succeed. But I'd say don't count on it. If you do want to try, make sure you enhance software that's covered by the BSD license, not the GNU GPL. If you choose the latter, you'll certainly have to open up the source code to any modifications you make. With BSD licensed software, you can keep it closed but include a note of acknowledgment in your software's licensing information.
Focus on what open source software finds difficult or impossible to address
With that said, open source software still has its weak points. All the openness can and does lead to fragmentation and inconsistency. Because people working on a project work only on what they want to rather than have a boss dictate items to them, a lot open source software lacks that extra polish that you'd expect from a consumer- or business-ready product.
I have a hunch that this is why open source programming tools are so clever and refined, while open source products meant for consumers seems to have a hard time getting past alpha or beta quality. Pretty much any open source program that a programmer would use on a regular basis and use heavily is bound to be very well done. Any rough edges are quickly smoothed out. But when a tool is built for non-programmers, the overwhelming tendency is for it to languish in mediocrity and stay under the radar of the wider community.
The business opportunities in open source software are rooted in the fact that open source developers overwhelmingly favor working on things that they want to work on. This means that the parts that aren't so fun are left undone. There is this desert where a programmer's passion only occasionally meanders — but it is wide open for businesses to step in, where another incentive which many of us are very familiar with, money, can take hold and flourish like native desert flora.
Where grassroots open source development stops, profitable enterprise begins. Here are some ways to make money from open source.
Client interactions and case-specific integration/support. It's fun to write new software, but not so fun to make sure that it works for every single person out there. Fortunately for the businessperson with an interest in open source, there are people who are willing to pay in order to get open source software working for them. Someone once said that open source software is only free if your time is worth nothing. There's truth in this, but that time can be dramatically reduced while avoiding being locked into closed source, proprietary software. Red Hat, Novell, IBM, and Sun make some decent cash through support contracts and servicing.
Subscriptions to updates that are well-tested and certified. There are software updates, and there are software updates that are guaranteed to work. I think Red Hat was extremely clever to set up their subscription system, and I admire it because I know that the updates coming from it aren't going to break anything. They do the hard work and make 95% margins on subscriptions. I can get on with my day rather than worrying about properly upgrading my server. It's unquestionably a win-win situation.
Coherent visual/brand identity that promises a certain expectation of quality. The open source community is vibrant, but it's also prone to fragmentation. Moreover, the traditional business practice of building a sustained competitive advantage through branding still stands in this new world of open source software. A brand still holds sway, and still serves as a focal point for trust. Novell, Red Hat, and Mozilla Firefox are highly respected open source flag bearers. It's really good once you get to that point, but, as in times past, building a brand requires a lot of hard work over many years.
Provide a stable platform: still open, but rarely changed because it has to work. There are two big problems with open source platforms: fragmentation and rapid change. Red Hat and Novell provide Linux distributions that can serve as stable platforms on which to build. They're infrequently updated and tightly specified. Ubuntu also has a Long Term Support (LTS) version of its releases, meant for the same purpose. It can be very rewarding to a company when it has control of a popular platform that holds a lot of developer mindshare. The vast majority of developers just want whatever they're building on to be predictable and for people to use their software. Providing a stable platform, trusted by developers and freely available to users, is a great way to establish thought leadership and make a name for your business. It yields a lot of advantages if you can get to the point where you are the trusted caretaker of a platform, but like branding, it's hard work and it's a long process only for the very committed.