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Open source: "Not a business model"
The 451 Group has released a report called “Open Source is Not a Business Model“. Their study looked at 100 companies involved in Open Source ranging across the spectrum of “pure” Open Source like Red Hat and other vendors who support some amount of Open Source activity like IBM and Oracle.
A central question that the report attempts to answer is how do companies generate revenue from open source software.
Two thirds of the companies are use an Open Source model that offers free software but charges for support and additional services. But only 10 percent of those companies are relying on this model for their main source of income. Most vendors offer some form of commercial license and also try to attract service revenues by labeling themselves as “open source specialists”.
Half of the vendors are using a hybrid approach to Open Source where many components are developed as open source projects, while other components are developed as commercial that are considered more strategic for the company.
Many companies offer software that have parallel tracks, an open source core offering and another commercial version that has specialized extensions to the core. JasperSoft and SugarCRM are examples. MySQL offers the same database software under two licenses, but the commercial license does not have the GPL requirement to disclose software developments.
The report concludes that Open Source is a tactical decision and not a business market or business model. They also find that the line between open source and commercial software is becoming ever more fuzzy.
