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O'Reilly on the Open Source Industry
Idmat writes "Tim's latest opus, "The Strange Case of the Disappearing Open Source Vendors," starts with Sherlock Holmes ruminating on "the curious incident of the dog in the night-time" and winds up explaining why open source is good for businesses even if it isn't always good for software vendors."
Why do people or companies use software? They use it to achieve their own ends (eg. manufacturing widgets). In terms of the whole economy, the software industry isn't an end in itself, it's a means to an end (eg. making widgets or whatever you or your company does). Cheaper software might be bad for software vendors but that can be good for the economy overall. Widgets are bound to be cheaper if the companies that manufacture and sell them don't need to pay the M$ tax.
I don't know about you, but I make a living using open source software. I contribute a little bit, but I leverage open source a lot.
So how can anyone say that open source is bad for business? I happen to be a business of one person, focusing on open source software consulting. My expenses are low and the value I provide is high.
And I'm quite profitable, thank you very much.
How many others here can claim that? I bet that thousands can.
If anyone claims that Open Source is doing anything but improving business and the economy, send them my way. I'll show them my piece of the world. And I'm far from being alone.
But it looks like some people in one particular software business wants to shut down my business. I'll fight that to the end.
Actually, i'd venture people are a lot more altruistic then you give them credit for, my AC friend.
/. subscriptions, i think it will be higher than most people believe. Communities such as open-source will continue to work, due to the quality of the products (Apache, Mozilla, Open Office to name a few) and sense of community and dedication to principles.
Look at people contributing to various communities and companies because they believe in them. Kuro5hin raised 35,000 dollars in two days, from a comparatively small reader population. Either RH or LM posted their first positive money flow recently. People, if they believe in things, will contribute to them. I, personally, bought Mandrake Powerpack to support the company and get nice printed manuals, and i got some customer support i don't think i'll need.
You're correct that running business models on free products can be very little cash flow, but if the company plays fair, supports the community, they community will only get larger and give back. What goes around, comes around.
If you ask how many people go
If only the whole world could act as well as the open-source community does.
(Disclaimer : Im not a raving open-source lunatic, though i might sound like it. Open-source is simply a great community design, and most people in the community have a strong sense of humanism and principles. Im also drunk)
Think nothing is impossible? Try slamming a revolving door.
If O'Reilly really wonders why all open source vendors disappeared, then they should just open source all their books and provide then contents in electronic form and they will see what happens.
This is also called the infamous "we don't have anything more to sell" surprise.
Only happens once, 'cos after that you are out of business.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
...was bought by Red Hat. As far as I know, they were never unprofitable, allthough in the early days they did get a few friendly development contracts with the FSF to stay in business. These days, it seem like most of Red Hats "wins" (and profit) come from the part of the company that used to be Cygnus.
Cygnus never seriously tried to sell GNU products, instead they sold support. In fact, their original name was Cygnus Support.
At one time they did have some "boxed products", GNUpro and even a Cygwin 1.0 box (which I'm the proud owner of). However, the real money came from support and development contracts.