Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Viable Open Source Models For Early Startups?
New submitter rchoetzlein writes "I am a software developer working independently for five years on various projects, and preparing to go public with my first product. Everyone is telling me I should make it open source. I would love to, but I just don't see how an early startup can afford to become profitable on service alone. My projects are no longer small-scale hobbies, they are large frameworks, and I need to make a living. Any ideas on business models that would allow me to open source while guaranteeing I can feed myself?"
If you think open source is not the way to go, then why bother asking slashdot? Seriously? You won't get the answers you're looking for here.
Yes he will.
The way I read it, ethically he thinks open source might be the right thing. Practically, it might not be a reality. He's fishing for examples of unconventional open-source money generating techniques.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Not sure whether I'd classify this as interesting, funny or appalling.
Sorry I consider it unethical to deliberately introduce bugs to any software. Not that you need to provide any standard of QA for an open source product, but it's ethical to ensure that whatever you release conforms to a certain "level of fitness" in that it'll do what it is designed.
Furthermore bugs in general reduce my opinion of a product and the company around them, if I see such a shoddy open source product, what's the guarantee a commercial product we'll be any better?
(after writing all this I now sit and ponder if I were trolled...)
...in bed
Redhat, is that you?
Try sunsetting your proprietaryness.
Have your product be proprietary for a finite period of time, and once a particular version is EOL'ed or otherwise ceases to be commercially viable, open source it and let the public go nuts over it.
You only need to keep your leading edge keen in the market.
"Everyone is telling me I should make it open source."
Open source is about allowing more people to look at the source code, for faster/better development. My guess is that most people who're telling you to make it open source have no idea what they're talking about. In fact, even you don't seem to understand the difference between open source and free software, because you write "[...] to become profitable on service alone." Free software is NOT the same as open source software. Free software is about freedom for its own sake, not about faster/better development. Start reading here.
What are you trying to do, make a living or change the world? (You generally can't do both at once; if you get rich from work, you can THEN maybe change the world.)
Let's start with the basics: What's in it for YOU? Is open source a buzzword, something you think you have to do ethically, just don't have the chops to turn it into a business, it based on other open source code? Is income something you vitally need to continue your work, to live a better life, or are you independently wealthy (I think you've ruled out the latter)?
I agree with an earlier poster: Make the core code that delivers basic utility to the user open source, if you want to use it as your "loss leader" to show them what's possible. Include all the extra features in the menus or configuration options of your program, so users can see what they're missing (clicking on it opens a window telling them it's in the commercial product, if they'd just buy it).
But, remember, open source is just a way for other people to leverage your code and make it into a competitive product...some will even violate your license agreement, and modify it to suit their customer base. Do you really want to spawn your own competitors?
maybe he's posting on sony's behalf?
you never know.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I'm currently working on a product that will have 3 components. 2 of them will be open source and 1 will be closed source. The web front end and the plugins will be open source (maybe optional) and the engine that does the actual heavy lifting will be closed and pay for only. Obviously, the plugins will be of little use to anyone not using the core product, but the web front will be able to be modified to work with any of the current products on the market. I'm okay with that though, because if it turns out that I have the best web front end then people will use it and it'll give exposer to my core product that it's designed to work with even if someone modifies to work with a competing product.
I'm still debating on how I want to do the plugins. I'm thinking about using LUA, but then that would force everyone to open source their plugins. I'd ultimately like to see a little ecosystem built around the plugins that allow people to make money off of them if they choose to. So I might go with a native c++ api as well.
Maybe this is something you could do as well. I've talked with several people in the industry this is targeting and that's how I've came up with this model. They don't really care to modify the core of the product as long as it does what it's spouse to do. They care about being able to modify all of the reporting and what not which is what the front end does. So it appears to be a win win for everyone.
Posting AC because I moderated the discussion.
-wmbetts
I believe parent has nailed it.
Ethically you want to do what is closest to your heart if you will, but unfortunately you need to eat, and usually this involves doing the opposite of ethical (or at least far from what the ideal-ethics tell you)
So I propose this. How about you release version 1.0 and 1.5 for example (or 1.0 and 2.0 or something) as regular closed-source software, and then when the next version comes out, you release the previous one as open source (e.g. release 1.0 and 2.0 for pay, when you release 3.0 for licensing you release at the same time v1.0 as open source)
Of course this would mean that you would have to have a road map for what you plan to introduce to your software along the years, so its easier to establish which version is to be safely released as open source without it hurting your paying customers. So, I think you would have to make significant changes and upgrades along the life of your software so it stays competitive and entices costumers to keep upgrading instead of waiting for the open source version, or in the case where the user doesn't really need the "greatest and latest" he could fallback to v1.0.
Disclaimer: I haven't actually put to work something like this, and actually this is an idea I believe I read here on Slashdot as it is, but I think, if not directly useful to you, could give you an idea of a "hybrid" approach, where certain functionality is still closed source as it requires the most of your time (so it costs more) but you still have the open version to maybe encourage some devs to take interest in this framework, or at least show your clientele that you really care about open source however economically infeasible it is for you.
I would say its on the same line of thought as "pay-what-you-think-its-worth" for games like World of Goo and such. You could effectively buy it for 1 dollar, but like me, a lot of people thought it was really nice of them to do this and since I actually enjoyed the game a lot, I payed like 15 or 20 USD (the original price). And even use that as a marketing tool.
Just my 2 bytes...I mean cents.
Slashdot. Unreadable news to annoy nerds. - wonkey_monkey
It heavily depends on what your product is, but you've at least these possible models:
1) Fully open source with lack or light documentation. This makes your product essentially free but users pay for support and/or the docs. I can't remember any specific example of a project selling the docs but I'm sure someone will.
2) Dual License model. A very popular example is ExtJS which is GPL (v3 iirc), however, if you wish to keep some code secret (including server parts) you might need a commercial license. And of course there are support plans available, as well as SVN/GIT access to the latest (devel) version.
3) Dual License with a Enterprise version. Essentially what MySql does where they offered an open source version but if you wanted fine tunned performance, support for enterprise hardware and support then you need the Enterprise version.
4) Dual License with long term support. Some projects like Liferay or Red Hat Enterprise use free versions as beta versions - after a while they release a long term supported version for enterprises and backport the important security and bug fixes. Maybe you already know but some companies are very slow to adopt new tech and ever slower to keep up, if they can keep a 4 year old version of the software that does the job well and still get support and bug fixes, you're best pals.
5) Early access model. Another possibility is to offer early access to new versions. For instance, the Xming project (a X11 server for Windows) offers donators access to new versions much earlier. You can even create a "pool" mode where you release the new version once X dollars are donated.
Depending on your target audience and the possibility of some of the adjustments required by those suggestions you might find a suitable model or cook some solution with ideas from several.
From someone in a similar spot, I wish you luck!
One consideration to think about is that the people who are recommending you release as open source may, in reality, simply be advocating for the ability to make customizations and build on top of the framework you're developing. An open API made actually serve their needs; and may be something they haven't considered, or don't know to ask about. So, open API, proprietary framework is one possibility.
Second, consider a subscription model to a proprietary database. It's a classic business model, and can be added to most any project relatively easily. Even open source ones. On the support side, the proprietary database may be a) premium support forum, b) bleeding edge features not incorporated into the base build, c) recent bug fixes and security patches not incorporated into the base build. On the feature side, there are countless opportunities, but they'll be dependent upon your framework and what it does. For example, if you have a service that is geolocation aware, your propietary database might be a list of locations of interest.
So you've worked for five years on this but haven't yet thought about the business model until now?
Instead of asking slashdot, how about this radical suggestion: talk to a potential customer.
As in, find somebody who might actually be a paying customer. You do know who they are, right? If you don't, stop programming right away and figure it out and get at least 5 names of people with their email & telephone.
You don't necessarily do what they ask (they want the moon, documented and supported and customzied, for 99 cents), but you will find out more useful information to make your decision. Talk human-to-human, on the phone or in person.
What business model will result in getting revenue now? What are your customers' needs? What constrains their decisions to buy or not?
A suggestion: open-source common interface code necessary to link your system with a customers' existing software. Integration problems are often a big worry among customers.
I can't think of a way of guaranteeing that you can feed yourself whether or not you open-source your code! Making it as an independent software vendor is hard. Above you, you have big companies who like money and won't hesitate to offer similar software, independently developed, if it looks like you've found a good market. Below you, you have FLOSS developers who won't hestitate to offer similar software for free if it looks like your software offers useful features for users. (In some cases, these groups may overlap.)
That said, you haven't given us anywhere near enough information to answer your question. Are you talking about highly specialized software for a niche market, or general purpose software with a potentially huge market? The edge-effects of open-source development are much more likely to be useful and beneficial to you in the latter case.
What do you get out of open-sourcing your software? Free publicity is almost certainly the biggest factor. How big is your advertising budget? Also, what about distribution channels? Remember, you're competing with big companies and (if you go the non-free route) open-source developers/companies. How are people going to hear about your software, and find it if they do hear about it, and decide if they like it better than other similar software?
Making your code proprietary greatly increases your per-user income, but makes it much more difficult (and expensive) to get new users. Open-sourcing your code makes it much easier to get new users, but greatly reduces your per-user income. Independent comic artist Phil Foglio started putting his Girl Genius comic up as a free webcomic, and said that his readership grew tenfold and his sales quadrupled. But that may or may not be typical.
There's also the possibility of hybrid models, like releasing the core as open source, but charging for add-ons, or, if you think other companies may want to adapt and sell your code, offering a choice between a restrictive free license (e.g. GPL) or a commercial for-pay license. Depending on what your program is and how it works, those may or may not be viable options--you haven't given us enough information to tell.
Bottom line, though: all the cards are stacked against you no matter which way you go. And, while you've given us very little to go on, it's quite likely that even if you gave us ten times the details you have so far, it still wouldn't be enough information to make more than a wild guess. Going it independent is hard and extremely risky. There's a reason that something like 90% of all programmers are employed developing internal software that never gets licensed or distributed outside of a single company--it's one of the few ways to be sure you eat.
You could always do what I've seen a couple of projects do, release a simpler open-source version and make your pay-for version have more advanced features.
I would suggest that as you add more and more advanced features to the pay-for version, that you include some of the older features inside of the open-source version
You could also ask for donations for the open-source download through paypal(remember you can't make them pay for it if it is just open-source source code)
My parent: Acapulco, has a similar idea but he just wants the older version to be open-sourced where my idea gives you a little more control over what stays closed-sourced and what is open-sourced. Maybe you do want them to pay for a very hard to program feature or something that took you a long time to R&D, which I can understand.
Just remember if you alienate your open-source community they will leave you and you might as well have not spent the time on making some/part/all of it open source to begin with
And every other free-to-play, but not to play for long, game
I hate that game model, it just makes the people that spend the most money get the best stuff and everyone else is just trying to kill 1,000,000 Level 0 Monsters so they can afford the Level 1 Gun, but oops, a person that bought all the best stuff just Player-Killed you, and you lost all your kills, sorry!
A few years we were in the same position as you are. We wanted to open source some of our technology and software but were trying to figure out how to make it work. Eventually we decided to offer both proprietary version of our software, and open source one. They are fairly identical and we offer support services for both.
The trick is, to ensure that we would convert the open source users to paying ones, we made most of the software features to do the heavy work on our servers, and then would strip the code altogether from the open source version. If users wanted to use the program they would for all practicality need to buy an yearly support contract from us, which included access to the servers hosting the code. On top of that we introduced various bugs and weird failures to the open source version, which would mean that the open source users would call our premium priced support telephone number. We needed to fine tune this over the year a bit , as we didn't introduce enough bugs in the beginning. But later we would start getting lots of support calls for bugs and it made a good amount of money.
This also made quite many sales of the proprietary version, so in overall it worked quite well. You might want to try something similar.
Ohhhh...you work for Tenable, don't you? Or are you Oracle's new head of product development?
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Kickstart it.
That's what all the cool dudes are doing.
I once had a signature.
Open source is a solution for certain problems. You're coming at this from entirely the wrong end, trying to find some reason to apply a solution that certain people like without identifying some reason to do so. Don't do that. If you have a reason to open source it, do. If you don't, don't.
Ethically you want to do what is closest to your heart if you will, but unfortunately you need to eat, and usually this involves doing the opposite of ethical (or at least far from what the ideal-ethics tell you)
You know, this sounds weird to me. Can an ideal that forces you to die of hunger be called "ethical" in any kind of reasonable real world moral system? That means nobody (at least nobody alive) can ever be "ethical" (or honest, or moral, or whatever you want to call it). That makes the particular ideal deeply flawed, and the moral system it belongs to is at least extremely questionable, if not completely senseless.
Now, I recognize the fact that people have and sometimes still do die for ideals - but the death is almost always caused by external factors opposed to whatever ideal they fight for, not by the ideal itself - the only exceptions I can think of are some bizarre suicide cults.
the key here is confidence in yourself.
the guy who created ruby on rails makes his living by touring the world doing talks, lectures and training on the software that he is the world's leading expert on: ruby on rails. everyone knows that if you want advice on ruby on rails, you go to him, because he is the one that a) wrote it and thus b) has the best working map of the entire software base in the electrical memory (immediate recall) of his brain c) has the ready-to-go speeches and documentation-drone sentences down pat and *also* in the electrical memory of his brain
(chemical memory is where long-term memories are stored: they're harder to get at. you know the phenomenon. can't quite remember something, but 1 minute later or usually after a good night's sleep "bingo!" - that's chemical memory).
the main thing to remember about the free software business model is that it is a *gratitude* business model, not a "desperation / control / last resort" model. as in: when comparing free software to proprietary software, you buy proprietary software out of desperation because there *isn't* any alternative free software, knowing full well that you will get screwed, locked-in and your entire data is now hopelessly entangled in the relationship with the vendor of the proprietary software.
by contrast, you know that, with free software, the person you're entrusting your data to does *not* have you at their mercy. you notice in the posts above - the ones that have been marked as "interesting" and "informative" - they all are variants on keeping the customer entirely at your mercy, so that they *have* no choice but to come to you. that's not really good for you, or for them. apart from anything, it assumes that you _will_ be available for the rest of your life to serve at their pleasure!
so, contrary to expectations, anyone who uses your [free software] product actually *knows* this, and makes a *deliberate* and conscious decision to contact you and offer you some money for a support contract, knowing full well that you _could_ have gone the proprietary route... and didn't.
in other words, you get a better class of customer; the relationship is entirely different; you are *not* beholden to each other - each of you can walk away at any time... i could go on, but you see how it's just generally a much healthier way to do business?
all it takes is that you trust people, and have confidence in yourself. if people like what you've done, and it's actually useful, you stand a chance of making money regardless. if they don't like it, or it's not useful, then... well... they've done you a favour by not having you waste any more of your life on useless software, haven't they? in which case you could go do something more productive :)
Look, you indicate you have a fully functional framework system that's prepared to go out the door. People need to purchase this. You have zero need to open source anything here. All that does is give exactly what you've done to the very people who may want to use it. What you definitely need to do is set up a trial or limited features version. Something that everyone and anyone can get their hands on very easily to justify whether it will come close to meeting their needs. Publish a very thorough API documentation to go along with it, as well as any other pertinent documentation the end users may need.
But open source? No way, not if you want to remain a company with a unique product in the next few years.
I believe parent has nailed it.
Ethically you want to do what is closest to your heart if you will, but unfortunately you need to eat, and usually this involves doing the opposite of ethical (or at least far from what the ideal-ethics tell you)
So I propose this. How about you release version 1.0 and 1.5 for example (or 1.0 and 2.0 or something) as regular closed-source software, and then when the next version comes out, you release the previous one as open source (e.g. release 1.0 and 2.0 for pay, when you release 3.0 for licensing you release at the same time v1.0 as open source)
this is what trolltech, mysql and other companies did. it never goes down well. it's _extremely_ unpopular, and absolutely guarantees that there will be no community *other* that paid-up staff members involved in the actual development of the software.
the reason is very simple: any person wishing to help make improvements to the software knows full well that they might as well not bother, because the free software version that they're using is hopelessly out-of-date.
in the case of QT, what actually happened was that the version 3 of QT (QT3) actually developed into an independent fork. the trinity desktop team now have taken full responsibility for its maintenance. bit of a digression here, but that version is years old, _but_ it has the advantage that it's much much smaller (faster, less code) than QT4 or QT5. QT4 is severe bloat-ware that performs extremely badly on ARM9 and ARM11 platforms.
anyway the point is: the "model" you propose only really works if you're a large corporation with lots of resources and lots of money and are willing to piss people off and make even the free software community absolutely desperate and beholden to you. that works for things like mysql and qt but dude, your software had better be _really_ shit hot to make these non-community-inclusive options work.
Can an ideal that forces you to die of hunger be called "ethical" in any kind of reasonable real world moral system?
Yes, some people are willing to die for their beliefs.
I can tell you right now, I would be willing to die to defend democracy, if it ever came to that extreme, and a lot of people would die to defend their families.
No one will ever die for money, but they will die for many other things. Thus ideals are more powerful than money.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
As a developer, you have a limited number of productive years, before family, lack of time, and brain cells makes you overpriced and uncompetitive. Global outsourcing will make this worse. You owe it to yourself to make a bundle of money now so you'll have something to pay off the house with and retire on. And besides, software becomes obsolete quickly, so if you think you'll make money eventually if its "free" to start, you're kidding yourself.
Just today I tried 3 "free" programs to do the simple task of merging mp3 audiobook files together.. they all sucked. I then spent $10 on one and it worked like a charm on the first go. The number of profitable companies that don't give away their entire product is vast. If it is worth something, charge for it. Willing buyer, willing seller. There should be a name for this concept.
(after writing all this I now sit and ponder if I were trolled...)
Let's see. You have 549 posts under your user name. He has 1 under his.
And the guy bothered to register a user name, when anybody else would have just posted as an "Anonymous Coward".
That was the ghostscript model. Each version was opensourced two years after being sold. Sales were to printer manufacturers.
-- hendrik
That's an "interesting" approach to marketing.
The downsides are that the people you want as clients will think your products lack quality, and if you ever grow enough to be noticed, somebody will fork your application and everybody will change for the fork.
The Upsides are... Well, you say it worked quite well. Altough I can't imagine how, I'm probably missing something.
Rethinking email
Ethically you want to do what is closest to your heart if you will, but unfortunately you need to eat, and usually this involves doing the opposite of ethical (or at least far from what the ideal-ethics tell you)
Why is it ethical for hundreds or perhaps thousands of people who do not even know you (most of whom will never even say "thanks", some of whom might even hate you if they met you) to use the product of your work for free? Why is it unethical for you to be compensated for thousands of hours of work?
Giving something away for free may well be a laudable act of personal generosity, (unless you are a huge software company attempting to kill your smaller competitor by giving away a free web browser, in which case some of the very people on Slashdot who say this is ethical will blast you as evil) but that does not make the choice to not give your work away for free unethical in any locale I am aware of that does not have Rod Serling standing in the corner smoking.
I suspect that a large number of the people who are always saying everything should be open-sourced and handed out for free are living in mom's basement on an allowance, or living on government assistance, and have therefore never become familiar with the basic laws of economics. 5-year-olds always think everything ought to be free because they have never had to work and people have always provided everything to them for free. Adults know that food, shelter, clothing, medicine, etc. all cost money (because the people who provide those things also need money for the things they need) and it is therefore honest and ethical for one man to compensate another man for the products of his labor. In ancient practice, people spent most of their time struggling to provide themselves with the things they needed to survive. In advanced societies we specialize; I do not hunt and kill animals or plant and harvest crops or make clothes or build shelters.... I do narrow very technical things for which I receive "money" which i then give to people who specialize in providing me with meat and grain and a house, etc. This is not unethical.... this is extremely ethical as it respects each person according to his/her talents and work and advances civilization. This system has fed, clothed, housed, and healed more people than any other system in the history of planet Earth.
No one gives a motherfuck what you think about anything. You're pissed because someone is making a profit while you eat shit sandwiches with your other open sores buddies. Go fuck yourself, fucktard. Fuck you in the ass!
I hope more open sores projects go this way. Turning that faggot shit into nothing more than a gateway to real code instead of the dick smoker version.
This is actually pretty interesting. This guy has spent a lot of time hating open source projects. "Open sores" - coming up with that means he's been spending a lot of time thinking about/hating open source projects. It's actually fairly clever. And the level of hate is impressive too. "Go fuck yourself, fucktard. Fuck you in the ass!" Usually you only get this level of anger if you shoot someone's dog or something. That's how much this guy hates open source projects.
But - and here's the interesting part - he sounds teenager-ish age. Early 20's at best. "Turning that faggot shit..." That kind of a thing. This is some kid somewhere. But he's mad about something that should only upset CEOs and CTOs, free software eating into a profit margin. What kid of his age cares about that? It's like having Bill and Ted give a state of the union speech.
It would be fascinating to know exactly why this kid hates open source so much. Did Richard Stallman run over his grandma or something? Was he a fifteen year old Wunderkind that had a million dollar startup that got shot down because someone put a similar app on SourceForge? Was his mother frightened by a picture of Linus Torvalds while she was pregnant with him?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I'd have to disagree on the ethics. When you are deciding between introducing bugs and feeding your family, feeding your family is the ethical choice. Better if you can avoid it, but ethical if you have to.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Not sure what they'd sue for. Like all software, the license will no doubt include an anti-guarantee of fitness.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
He could be an Anonymous Coward and still have an interesting question. And I'd like to offer him a reply.
Open source is massively misunderstood by just about everyone who doesn't read slashdot. Corporate executives' knee-jerk reaction to open source is that it's a Communist plot designed to destroy Capitalism. Free Software advocates (open source is a dirty phrase) will state that your company must embrace the give-it-away-for-free philosophy or your soul will be damned (that line of reasoning works with chicks, too).
In reality, if you have software which cannot make you money directly, it's a very good candidate for making open-source, assuming that someone out there will bother to use your code. Most closed-source commercial code does not pass this test. Usually, they could mail DVD's with their proprietary source to every competitor and not one of them would bother reading any of it. If you think open source code is ugly, just wait until you see the closed-source crap powering our big businesses.
So, in the unlikely case that anyone would care to read the code your company is considering making open source, the next question is "could you sell it?" If that code has any value to anyone, chances are that the copyright holder will go for the bucks rather than make it open-source. In most cases like this, I would guess that the source is closed to worthless. It's the coders that count, not their current code base.
Assuming there are people out there who want to use your soure code, either to compete with you or because it's valuable in their business, and somehow you could charge for that source, well then no... keep it closed source, because your boss will get seriously pissed otherwise. In the end, regardless of the actual issues at hand, your boss will cover his behind and force you to keep it closed source just so he can point out his enormous value to the company, where without him, dangerous socialists like you would give away the Company Jewels. You freaking Obamacare lover... Thank God for your boss!
Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
A scenario in which customers might care about the source code could be one in which your software handles customer AND client data and the client (the one using your software) needs to in some way advertise the security and fitness of the software to safely handle their customer data. Advertising that it is publicly available and allowing new clients to hire anyone they like to review it might be advantageous. It allows clients to provide customers with an assurance that though they outsource the service to a 3rd party, (your software company) they have an independent review of the open source platform they are using and can offer a higher degree of assurance than a similar company outsourcing that service to a closed source platform.
Basically, the only reply to OSS business models is "support your product". If the product is so easy/good that no support is required, then you might as well have no product at all.
Please can we stop repeating this fallacy? That is not what support means. When people talk about paying for support in open source does not mean paying for someone to answer the phone and tell you how to use it. It does not even mean paying for training (although that can be a good business model too). It means paying to turn a product (software) into a solution (something that directly addresses a real need).
Very few off-the-shelf software packages do exactly what the user needs without any customisation. Even something like MS Office generates a huge amount of business for people writing business-specific templates, macros, wizards and so on. In a big company, you'll have customised interfaces for generating all of the standard forms of document that the company requires. Someone had to write all of these, and that person got paid. They would have been paid just as much if the company had been using OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Office. By the way, this is one of the reasons why MS Office doesn't do as badly as you'd expect in TCO calculations: for a big company the cost of customisation is a significant part of the total cost.
The more esoteric the software is, the more that it's going to need time (and therefore money) spent integrating it into a business. This is how companies like IBM make most of their money. It doesn't matter to their business model if the software is proprietary or open: if it's open then it means that they get lots of reusable building blocks for free, but the final solution is so tailored to their customer that they won't be selling it more than once anyway. Look at SAP: their software is proprietary, but it doesn't have to be because their entire business model involves charging a lot of money to customise it. They could give away a stock install for free and still charge a lot for the customisation.
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