Making money from open source / free software

[Lloyd Budd]

On 18-Mar-04, at 1:11, Paul DiRezze wrote:

> At 12:06 AM 18/03/2004 -0500, cbbrowne-HInyCGIudOg at public.gmane.org wrote:
>> > That is a decent article, but the following does not ring
>> > universally true to me:
>> > "Open source is always a way of saving money, because
>> > you can produce software at a lower cost," Marten Mickos,
>> > CEO of MySQL, told the audience.
>>
>> You're quite right.
>>
>> Open source has nothing to do with
>> "producing software at a lower cost."

> I think it has a lot to do with reducing software development costs.
*Using* open source software does, but does *producing* open
source software?

It is a great way to give back ;-)

It can be great for marketing ;-)

It is a great way to push your ideas as open "standards" ;-)

But I have not been able to come up with business cases to use in
influencing my employer to *universally* open-source.

It is generally accepted that the later you add people to a project
the greater the cost.

Open Source enforces accountability -- something that often comes
with great "initial" cost.


>> It is quite likely that it is _more costly_ to produce "open source"
>> software.
>>
>> - It is mandatory that you start from scratch; you can't have the
>> "savings" of using proprietary software.
>
> I don' think this is true.  There are hundreds (if not thousands) of
> open source libraries and other tools you can use to jump-start
> your development effort.
Not in the context of wholly owning what you create.
Proprietary libraries are generally as rich without the
viral license (ie GLP).  Nor can you borrow from other
projects with viral licensing.

> Additionally, you may have a significant portion
>  of your product developed by volunteer coders for a greatly
> reduced cost.
This is an unknown, and very uncommon for any application with
  "advanced implementation".  This relates to the reason way there are
often many applications that source the same problem well, but none
do an amazing job.

>> - And with "open source" software, you cannot assume that you
>> will be able to recoup your costs by selling licenses.
>>
>> The savings of cost comes in when it allows you to use software
>> that  _someone else_ produced and not be expected to pay for it.
>> But that is not a savings associated with _producing_ the software.
>
> I think it is.  Whether it's me linking my code to an open source 
> library
> and using open source tools to write my programs, I find many
> ways in which open source saves me money _producing_ software.
I am sure Mr Brown agrees with you there.  I do not think that is the 
context
of the statement.  The context is that you have to provide the open 
source
product at the cost of distribution.


Cheers,
Lloyd

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