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Seven Open Source Business Strategies

Posted by Hemos on from the building-an-economic-future dept.

Openstandards.net writes "One of /. posters' favorite discussions is the value of open source as a business model. OSDN has an article on IT Manager's Journal that highlights seven business strategies for open source. " Slashdot and ITMJ are both owned by OSDN.

6 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. One interesting thing by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 4, Interesting

    One thing I noticed about that article when reading it yesterday was that only two of those business models actually include writing open source code. This fits with my thoughts that there's plenty of money to be made from open source, but not necessarily from creating open source.

    1. Re:One interesting thing by fbrain · · Score: 5, Interesting

      My company implements open source solutions for a small fee, and when asked to install some OSS we always donate a percentage of the fee towards the projects we use. It would be great if everyone 'played nice' but I can't see that happening.

      --
      Avontech | Play dirty! They started it!
    2. Re:One interesting thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Indeed you are correct. Amazon and Google are but two testaments to the idea of using open source for business purposes, and neither is exactly a "software" company.

  2. Data Strategy? by Mr.+Sketch · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It was a nice read, but I was curious about one additional option, the 'Data Strategy'. This is specific to games where you may develop the engine using open source tools and release the engine as open source, but charge for all your data files the engine uses for your particular game. Or has this just not been proven as being a viable model?

    --
    Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
  3. Sleepycat license question by 16K+Ram+Pack · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Does anyone have any more details on this?

    Like if I submit a fix/enchancement to MySQL in the GPL version, can they as the 'owners' put that in their commercial license which their customers can release without the source code?

  4. Re:Missing option: consumer desktop business model by DR+SoB · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yes, with a few simple steps:

    1. IBM dumps tons of money into marketing Linux (any distro..)

    2. IBM upgrades OO..

    3. IBM allows blatant pirating of OS, and offer's free (or next to free) training. Pirates = Free training..

    4. IBM reduces price of x desktop model that comes with Linux.

    5. IBM sell's business licenses because now it's desktop version is well known to market/consumers/PHB's..

    6. Profit!

    --
    Mod +5 Drunk