
Open Source Business Models - timtdnguyen
http://www.heavybit.com/library/video/2013-10-15-marten-mickos
======
hyperliner
Ok, quick summary:

I think the bottom line of this chat is that making money with open source
software is hard. Either:

\- you are facebook or google and don't care about the direct revenue from the
software, but its indirect revenue. In this case, you clearly need to be a
giant to get these types of strategic leverage advantages

\- you make money from "support" which is not scalable as a software business

\- you build something that is yours only and which you can monetize.

The idea that they had to push MySQL's advanced features for free because "we
must show we are committed to OSS" was strange. I think they could have (from
my armchair point of view) given away some basic version and then a for-pay
set of capabilities (I don't know: clustering, security, performance, etc).

I think the comment that they were valued at $1B and "nobody wants to buy
Postgress") was odd. But on the other hand MySQL did have the convergence of
good marketing, good technology, good sales, good leaders, etc.

What is there for a small entity trying to make money in OSS? Assuming you
don't want to be in a support business, then it is some form of "closed
software."

One important insight was how branding can be an advantage. This is, "this can
be open source, but you cannot use my brand." For example Red Hat. Again, also
relevant only when you achieve a certain size.

~~~
wslh
I think a dual business model with an AGPL open source license is a good way
to start in the server space. Frankly, I don't know if this will be more
difficult than starting a closed source software company becase nowadays
closed source software are difficult to promote (e.g. few people share them in
social media).

Additionally, while I agree that following an open source business model is
hard I don't think Facebook and Google apply. They are not open sourcing their
core products like MySQL, MongoDB, JBoss, RedHat We can argue about Android
but Android is neither iOS nor Windows Mobile, in the sense that the kernel is
Linux and there are libs based on the GNU ones.

~~~
hyperliner
I should have clarified. The examples were Facebook open sourcing Cassandra or
Google open sourcing Android. So really the examples were Cassandra and
Android.

I don't agree that closed sourced software are difficult to promote or as you
say "few people share them." When people share something on Twitter or
Facebook, do they ask "is this open source? then I will share" or do they say
simply say "this is an awesome piece of software. let me share it"?

~~~
wslh
In contexts such as computer security and reverse engineering an open source
approach gives more shares within its own community. I understand other people
only care if their needs are satisfied.

------
pessimizer
>We had one customer at MySQL who paid us voluntarily. Craigslist. So Craig
Newmark sent us $10,000 saying, "I don't find anything to buy in your
offerings, but I love you guys and I would like to support you, so here's
$10,000." And that was the reminder to us that we had no good business model.

~~~
rubiquity
It's always amazing (in a good way) how some open source projects can make
others millions but the library creators can't figure out how to make a buck.

------
patrickg
I really wish I had a good business model for my open source product (a
database publishing software). I am doing my living from it - quite ok -
(selling support), but I think I could do much more. If there is someone from
Berlin, Germany with ideas or knowledge in that area, I'd be more than happy
to talk to you about that (even might pay you for that).

~~~
bjelkeman-again
We set out to solve a problem first, where the solution includes open source
software run as a service. Most people don't want to run software services.
They just want to use them. In our case the software is important, but without
attached services (training, consulting, support, program management etc) it
wouldn't work.

Now, I don't claim it is easy, or suitable for everyone, but it is possible.
Come visit one day and I'll show how we do it for free. It is open after all.
;)

------
yellowapple
> Take an example: How many of you have Apple laptops? Is the operating system
> open for you? No, but what was it originally built on? The BSD operating
> system which was open source. But BSD was licensed under its own license
> which didn't require derivative works to be open, so Apple could take it,
> modify it, add their own stuff and keep it completely for themselves.

Apparently this guy doesn't realize that a good chunk of OS X actually _did_
continue to be released under FOSS licenses. It's basically Darwin[0] (which
in turn contains XNU[1]), plus some closed-source userland stuff and libraries
in order to make it pretty.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_%28operating_system%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_%28operating_system%29)

[1]:
[http://osxbook.com/book/bonus/ancient/whatismacosx/arch_xnu....](http://osxbook.com/book/bonus/ancient/whatismacosx/arch_xnu.html)

~~~
oscargrouch
The kernel is open source... but you cant have a full blown Mac OS by just
compiling it.. a lot of core pieces are missing..

So the OS looks pretty closed source to me..

~~~
yellowapple
You can't have a full-blown Mac OS, true, but you can have a pretty good chunk
of it. It's enough to be a good starting point for entirely-FOSS
implementations like PureDarwin.

Basically, from the open-source components alone, you have a kernel (XNU),
userland (based on FreeBSD), init system (launchd), print server (CUPS), and
X11 support, among various other things.

One of the key missing pieces is Cocoa, along with the other miscellaneous
pieces accompanying it in the transition from NeXTSTEP/OpenStep to OS X.
However, much of it is implemented already by GNUStep, and while GNUStep isn't
advertised as being binary-compatible with Cocoa, it _is_ advertised as being
_source_ -compatible, and therefore still useful (with XNU and the BSD-based
userland, I wouldn't be surprised if binary-compatibility could be achieved,
but I don't think the GNU devs are prioritizing that right now).

The other significant missing piece is Aqua/Quartz. Quartz is replaceable with
X11 or Wayland, and Aqua can likely be replaced by X11 WMs / Wayland
compositors with good theme support. Given the sheer number of Aqua lookalike
themes floating around for the major DEs/WMs, that's probably not a big
problem (not to mention DEs like Étoilé that are designed specifically to
mimic OS X; Étoilé in particular is designed to integrate well with GNUStep).

~~~
oscargrouch
Well at least once they pick some open source project, they contribute back
the incremental iterations they do.. at least is better than companies that
use and do not contribute back..

I think Xnu is a mix of the CMU kernel + Freebsd kernel stuff + apple specific
things like graphical drivers interfaces, etc..

They keep it open the things they borrow and even improve.. im sure X11
improved a lot after apple started using it..

But it still debatable to defend the OS as open source.. just to elaborate a
little bit more on my point

------
Spearchucker
It bothers me that this is a War-and-Peace epic that makes it difficult to
find the various models in a digestible form. Many have told me how good life
will be if I charge for support of an open source app. And yet no one compares
that with support revenue PLUS unit sales of software. I don't want to be in
the support business (acknowledging that some support is always required, paid
for or not). I want to be in the software business.

The security argument for open source no longer holds any credence with me,
because under standard assumptions, open source and proprietary software is
security equivalent in the sense that opening up the code helps both the
attacker and defender equally -

[http://idei.fr/activity.php?r=1898](http://idei.fr/activity.php?r=1898) \-
Ross Anderson, "Security in Open versus Closed Systems - The Dance of
Boltzmann, Coase and Moore".

~~~
dj-wonk
I think saying "equally" misses a key point: it depends on the abilities and
numbers of the attackers and the defenders.

~~~
rwallace
There is also the consideration that in practice, attackers are far more
likely than defenders to be willing to reverse engineer a binary.

------
jipiboily
What would be the TL;DR? (or TL;DListen?)

~~~
suzyperplexus
So I wrote at the risk of being a self-promotional jerk. Here's the blog post:
[http://blog.heavybit.com/blog/2014/7/21/video-release-
former...](http://blog.heavybit.com/blog/2014/7/21/video-release-former-mysql-
ceo-on-open-source-business-models)

~~~
jipiboily
Awesome, thanks.

<3 self-promotion done right :)

