SaaS is out sourced IT. Plenty of SaaS could open source their entire code base and it would have little effect on sales; people would gladly still pay for it to be hosted.
In some categories, having the code open source helps gain adoption early in the process.
So yes, open source is not a business model, but plenty of open source software is monetized these days.
> SaaS is out sourced IT. Plenty of SaaS could open source their entire code base and it would have little effect on sales; people would gladly still pay for it to be hosted.
The problem is that with open source, anybody can be the SaaS provider and make the money from the open source software. In fact, companies will be more willing to go with either the bigger names or providers they have existing contracts with, than a small open source company.
> plenty of open source software is monetized these days
One of the most successful models has been to take open source software that someone else wrote, add your own proprietary extensions and enhancements, and sell it as a service.
Some of the most appealing aspects of open source for businesses are potentially reduced labor costs (because much of the software development work will be either done for free or paid for by others) and faster time to market (because much or most of the engineering work has already been done.)
Very true, also it's a way of sucking people in. I run a few servers at work, hosting non critical services, such as password management, wiki and other things that aren't used by many in the org. The day those get used by more than a few people we will go paid SAAS as I don't have the time or mandate to provide 24/7 support.
In some categories, having the code open source helps gain adoption early in the process.
So yes, open source is not a business model, but plenty of open source software is monetized these days.