Source: Wired Magazine: 16.04 (http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-04/bz_opensource)
Monday, June 16, 2008
Open Source as Career Opportunity for Developers
Esther Shindler, editor at CIO Magazine, has a great article on this topic. She says:
Sometimes, there isn’t much you can do to kick-start your career. Not everyone can be lucky enough to get involved in a high-profile project at work, or to develop a talent in a technology that’s suddenly in-demand. But it surprises me when IT professionals who aim to move up the career ladders don’t take advantage of one resource that’s a win-win solution all around: get involved in an open source project.
This is particularly important to women in IT, who can feel that it’s hard to get noticed in their companies (see The Executive Woman’s Guide to Self-Promotion for general guidelines on how to counter that problem). But it really applies to anyone who wants to gain experience and visibility in the IT department, even if you don’t care about becoming a rock star.
As a participant in an open source project, everything is in your control. You pick the project that you think is the most valuable, or in which you can develop the skills you need but can’t justify on your résumé. In the universe of open source, you’re judged only by what you contribute. Corporate politics aren’t an issue. If your code is useful, or your technical documentation is appreciated, or you’re just a welcoming voice on the community IRC channel, you have a good chance of being invited to become a committer.
Linux Desktop Applications
OpenProj by Projity is a desktop replacement of Microsoft Project. OpenProj has equivalent functionality, a familiar user interface and even opens existing MSProject files. OpenProj is interoperable with Project, with a Gantt Chart and PERT chart etc.
Google Desktop enables desktop search with Google and add Google Gadgets to customize your desktop.
CUPS-PDF project is a PDF writer backend for CUPS. It is designed to produce PDF files in a heterogeneous network by providing a PDF printer on the central fileserver. It will convert files printed to its queue in CUPS to PDF and put them in a per-user-based directory structure. It can execute post-processing scripts, e.g. to allow mailing the results to the user.
OpenOffice.org is a cross-platform office application suite available for a number of different computer operating systems. It supports the ISO standard OpenDocument Format (ODF) for data interchange as its default file format, as well as Microsoft Office '97-2003 formats, among many others. The functionality of OpenOffice is enriched with the extensions like templates, addons, etc.
Pimp your desktop: automate desktop wallpaper with Webilder.
Firefox 3 web browser is available for download since 17th June. With more than 15,000 improvements, Firefox 3 is faster, safer and smarter than ever before.
Google Desktop enables desktop search with Google and add Google Gadgets to customize your desktop.
CUPS-PDF project is a PDF writer backend for CUPS. It is designed to produce PDF files in a heterogeneous network by providing a PDF printer on the central fileserver. It will convert files printed to its queue in CUPS to PDF and put them in a per-user-based directory structure. It can execute post-processing scripts, e.g. to allow mailing the results to the user.
OpenOffice.org is a cross-platform office application suite available for a number of different computer operating systems. It supports the ISO standard OpenDocument Format (ODF) for data interchange as its default file format, as well as Microsoft Office '97-2003 formats, among many others. The functionality of OpenOffice is enriched with the extensions like templates, addons, etc.
Pimp your desktop: automate desktop wallpaper with Webilder.
Firefox 3 web browser is available for download since 17th June. With more than 15,000 improvements, Firefox 3 is faster, safer and smarter than ever before.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
The Five Open Source Business Models
Open source has become standard in Silicon Valley, with nearly every software startup planning to release at least some code. So far, they've found five main business models:
1. Sell support services. This is the traditional Linux model, prototyped by Red Hat. It's still a part of most open-source business plans, but on its own it's rarely enough for startups trying to grow. The problem (for the startups) is that anyone can redistribute the code and sell support or consultancy services, so there's nothing to stop an Oracle (NSDQ: ORCL), an IBM (NYSE: IBM), or a Novell (NSDQ: NOVL) from grabbing most of the services revenue.
2. Build (or run) hardware. Free software ought to make hardware more profitable, but relatively few open source companies have taken the hardware route. (Lots of hardware vendors use open-source in their products, of course, but they're not really open-source companies.) The main reason is that installing software on commodity components has even fewer barriers to entry than selling support, as VA Linux showed during the first bubble. Still, some startups have resurrected the idea, notably Vyatta (router) and SocialText (wiki appliance).
3. Proprietary components. Many startups now combine proprietary and open-source code, essentially holding back some functionality from what they release for free. The most successful to use this model so far was VMWare competitor XenSource (now part of Citrix (NSDQ: CTXS)), which gave away the Xen hypervisor but sold its proprietary management software.
Competitor VirtualIron does exactly the same thing, collaborating with Citrix on Xen but competing on management. XenSource's success has made this a popular strategy for other open source startups such as MuleSource (SOA) and Hyperic (systems management.) It also gives established software vendors a clear path to open source.
4. Dual licensing. Some customers just don't want to follow open-source licenses (usually the GPL), so many open-source vendors will happily sell them proprietary licenses for the same software. This works well for companies like Trolltech and MySQL, and it could become more popular thanks to new open-source licenses that place tighter restrictions on what other vendors can do for free.
For example, the limits on home DRM in GPL v3 are intended to make consumer electronics more open, but they could eventually give open-source companies a revenue stream from DRM vendors who want the code without the license. The (so far little-used) AGPL could have an even bigger impact, thanks to its requirement that SaaS users be able to download the source code. The big disadvantage for startups taking this approach is that they can't easily leverage community development, as they need to hold copyright on all code.
5. Advertising. The Mozilla Foundation discovered this almost by accident, when Google (NSDQ: GOOG) paid the Firefox developers so much in referral fees that they had to incorporate as a for-profit. It's also used (along with the other four) by Digium, the main backer of the free Asterisk PBX, which comes pre-configured to connect to particular IP telephony services. I expect we'll see more startups embrace this idea as SaaS becomes more common and ASPs offer big bucks for customer leads.
1. Sell support services. This is the traditional Linux model, prototyped by Red Hat. It's still a part of most open-source business plans, but on its own it's rarely enough for startups trying to grow. The problem (for the startups) is that anyone can redistribute the code and sell support or consultancy services, so there's nothing to stop an Oracle (NSDQ: ORCL), an IBM (NYSE: IBM), or a Novell (NSDQ: NOVL) from grabbing most of the services revenue.
2. Build (or run) hardware. Free software ought to make hardware more profitable, but relatively few open source companies have taken the hardware route. (Lots of hardware vendors use open-source in their products, of course, but they're not really open-source companies.) The main reason is that installing software on commodity components has even fewer barriers to entry than selling support, as VA Linux showed during the first bubble. Still, some startups have resurrected the idea, notably Vyatta (router) and SocialText (wiki appliance).
3. Proprietary components. Many startups now combine proprietary and open-source code, essentially holding back some functionality from what they release for free. The most successful to use this model so far was VMWare competitor XenSource (now part of Citrix (NSDQ: CTXS)), which gave away the Xen hypervisor but sold its proprietary management software.
Competitor VirtualIron does exactly the same thing, collaborating with Citrix on Xen but competing on management. XenSource's success has made this a popular strategy for other open source startups such as MuleSource (SOA) and Hyperic (systems management.) It also gives established software vendors a clear path to open source.
4. Dual licensing. Some customers just don't want to follow open-source licenses (usually the GPL), so many open-source vendors will happily sell them proprietary licenses for the same software. This works well for companies like Trolltech and MySQL, and it could become more popular thanks to new open-source licenses that place tighter restrictions on what other vendors can do for free.
For example, the limits on home DRM in GPL v3 are intended to make consumer electronics more open, but they could eventually give open-source companies a revenue stream from DRM vendors who want the code without the license. The (so far little-used) AGPL could have an even bigger impact, thanks to its requirement that SaaS users be able to download the source code. The big disadvantage for startups taking this approach is that they can't easily leverage community development, as they need to hold copyright on all code.
5. Advertising. The Mozilla Foundation discovered this almost by accident, when Google (NSDQ: GOOG) paid the Firefox developers so much in referral fees that they had to incorporate as a for-profit. It's also used (along with the other four) by Digium, the main backer of the free Asterisk PBX, which comes pre-configured to connect to particular IP telephony services. I expect we'll see more startups embrace this idea as SaaS becomes more common and ASPs offer big bucks for customer leads.
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
What is the open source business model?
It is often confusing to people to learn that an open source company may give its products away for free or for a minimal cost.
How do open source companies make money?
While it is true that an open source business may not make money directly from its products, it is untrue that open source companies do not generate stable and scalable revenue streams.
In actuality, in the 21st century web technology market, it is the open source company that has the greatest long-term strategic advantage. This is demonstrated by companies such as LINUX, Apache, and Netscape, a host of web-specific technologies such as Java, Perl, TCL, and a host of web-specific technology companies such as Sendmail.
The open source business model relies on shifting the commercial value away from the actual products and generating revenue from the 'Product Halo,' or ancillary services like systems integration, support, tutorials and documentation.)
This focus on the product halo is rooted in the firm understanding that in the real-world, the value of software lies in the value-added services of the product halo and not in the product or any intellectual property that the product represents.
In actuality, the value of software products approaches zero in the fast-paced, highly-customized, ever-changing world of information technology.
But it is not simply an acknowledgement of the revenue streams generated by the product halo that makes open source a compelling business strategy.
Open source also cuts down on essential research and development costs while at the same time speeding up delivery of new products.
This paradoxical situation arises from the fact that within an open source project, the community members themselves provide free research and development by contributing new solutions, features, and ideas back to the community as a whole. The company that sits at the center of any successful open source project may reap the rewards of the work of thousands of highly-skilled developers without paying them a cent.
A final strength of the open source business model lies in its ability to market itself.
Because open source products are typically released for free, open source companies that can produce quality products and generate a good reputation can almost immediately grab huge shares of any market based on the complex and far-reaching global referral networks generated by users.
In fact, in the web technology space, almost every global standard has been based upon open source technology.
By using the open source technology model, we can create a superior product, which immediately has a competitive advantage, and which generates multiple scalable revenue streams while being freely available throughout the community.
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