Commercial Open Source

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Description

Éric Barroca:

"The “commercial open source” business model is based on the 3 pillars:

1. a GPL (or GPL-like) software tagged “community”

2. a proprietary version of the GPL software with some “proprietary extensions” sold using a traditional license

3. a serious dose of communication efforts to explain how open source magically creates cheap great software for everyone (and that in fact you’re not really selling it) and generates a ton of leads allowing you to get to market faster and cheaper." (http://blogs.nuxeo.com/ebarroca/2009/08/commercial-open-source-or-just-a-free-demo.html)

Discussion

Critique

Eric thinks most software in this category is misnamed, and stands simply for 'free demo's'

Éric Barroca:

* “Community Editions” you mean… “Free Demo”?

I don’t get the fundamental difference between offering a “low-end” open source version of your software and offering a free but proprietary one. Especially when I read that the “Community version” is for “developers, hobbyists and small deployments ‘cause it’s cool and fun tech” while the “Enterprise version” is for “enterprise deployment ‘cause it’s full of tests and stable code.”

Hmmm… how do you turn an untested, unstable software into an enterprise-grade, rock-solid software with “some extension”? Well, you don’t. :-) Either your software is well-tested and rock-solid, or it’s not.


* Open source software generates leads, right?

Wrong. Freely downloadable apps generate leads. Free trials generate leads. Smart marketing efforts generate leads. Having access to source code does not generate leads, at least not when you are offering applications (it might be different for middleware or dev tools).


* “It’s not proprietary software, it’s giving reason to buy when people use the software”

The reason to buy is called “license fee for usage right”. It’s been around for 20 years and if you want to give people a “reason to buy” your software, just use a “license fee” for usage and maintenance. That is what it's designed for — it will save you a bunch of marketing dollars." (http://blogs.nuxeo.com/ebarroca/2009/08/commercial-open-source-or-just-a-free-demo.html)