Making money from open source / free software

[cbbrowne-HInyCGIudOg at public.gmane.org]

> At 12:06 AM 18/03/2004 -0500, you 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.

To the contrary, the need for additional communications in open source
projects seems likely to have a lot to do with _increasing_ software
development costs.

> >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.  Additionally, you may have a significant portion
> of your product developed by volunteer coders for a greatly reduced
> cost.

Those libraries may allow you to leverage _someone else's_ software at
lowered cost.

It does not mean that YOUR process of producing YOUR software becomes
cheaper.

> >- 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.

When you write open source software, do you "magically" produce twice as
much code per hour as you would when writing "proprietary" software?  Or
do you get paid only half as much?

Those would be good reasons to consider that it is somehow less costly
to produce "open source" software.

Your linking in other peoples' code is the same leveraging of someone
else's costs.  It may reduce the amount of code you have to produce; it
does not forcibly reduce the cost of producing your own code.
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