No Open Source Business Model
[Authors note: I receive frequent requests from the software
supplier community to discuss the various “open source business
models” and the “open source software (OSS) market.”
My opinion on these subjects are scattered through various other ebizQ
feature articles and/or blog posts, but perhaps so scattered that my
findings are not clear. This article summarizes all past ebizQ
“OSS-business-issue” category findings in one place and
links back to more detail in previously posted articles.]
The following is considered heresy by many:
In addition, there are very few “open source vendors,”
because most open source software now comes from the same friendly guy
or woman in the blue-striped suit (Polo shirt at trade shows) who has
always called on you. OSS is very much a means to an end for software
suppliers rather than an end in and of itself. Users need to take the
same attitude.
Valley wags in particular and others bent on creating new categories
of any type of information technology (IT) disagree. That’s
because they want to raise capital or unnaturally differentiate product
A from product B, the two primary reasons for creating unneeded IT
categories. However when I look for an open source-based product or
service that is monetized and brought to market in any way uniquely
different than various closed-source software has been monetized and
marketed over the last half century, I cannot find any examples. Two
supporting points to that finding are:
- The idea of giving away the razor to sell the razor blade
predates IT by another half century. I admit that when IT suppliers
freely distributed source code prior to system/software unbundling, the
code typically ran only on the system with which it was
distributed. So the distribution really did not have the same
effect as OSS today but the business model was the same.
- The idea of “free as in air” software was not new
when first described as such in the mid 1980s. In addition, there is
really no business model to ascribe to pure “free
software;” however it is an interesting cultural phenomenon as
described below.
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