Do open source companies need to be somewhat proprietary to make money?

[Ozor Mox]

As far as I know, all companies that have a lot of investment in open source (IBM, Novell, Red Hat, Sun, Canonical) also have proprietary components added to the software, or use that business model in some way. Canonical I would guess is the closest to being completely open source, but even they have Launchpad and things which are closed source, and sometimes they take a lot of stick for it.

Can an open source company survive completely on support contracts, adverts, etc. and therefore can Stallman's ideal world of all software being completely free exist, or will companies always need proprietary software in addition to open source to make money? Although I support and use free software, I certainly don't have any problem with Canonical supplying proprietary stuff if it keeps them running smoothly and making Ubuntu better.

[fatality_uk]

As far as I know, all companies that have a lot of investment in open source (IBM, Novell, Red Hat, Sun, Canonical) also have proprietary components added to the software, or use that business model in some way. Canonical I would guess is the closest to being completely open source, but even they have Launchpad and things which are closed source, and sometimes they take a lot of stick for it.

Can an open source company survive completely on support contracts, adverts, etc. and therefore can Stallman's ideal world of all software being completely free exist, or will companies always need proprietary software in addition to open source to make money? Although I support and use free software, I certainly don't have any problem with Canonical supplying proprietary stuff if it keeps them running smoothly and making Ubuntu better.

In the same way anyone can take GPL'd source code, there is nothing stopping someone writing a "commercial" license based on the GPL. Something along the lines of: The code may be used for personal use, but should you wish to use the code in a commercial application, then a license fee would be required.

A "commercial" GPL would I feel bring a lot more players into "free" software delivery.

[Xbehave]

No.

If they are not a s/w company then they can open their software for a competitive advantage - integration, system analyists, hardware (all used to be "open" source), security.
If they want to be a s/w company then its a bit more tricky but selling support, services, integration and customization are all good options. Tho its not as clear cut i this case and selling closed software may be a good idea.


p.s i think redhat is much more opensource than canonical, can't think of anything they have that's closed anymore.

[Ozor Mox]

p.s i think redhat is much more opensource than canonical, can't think of anything they have that's closed anymore.

Ah, I thought Red Hat's Enterprise Server/Desktop stuff had proprietary stuff stuck on to the base Linux or Fedora system, but perhaps I am wrong.

[monsterstack]

Canonical has always maintained that they will open-source the Launchpad and stuff once they have enough of a community there. I think they should just go right ahead. It's the community that makes or breaks open source projects, and there are many people using Launchpad.

[phrostbyte]

Well no, but I think proprietary software is a better way to make money. Unfortunately the way way the world works with copyright law and such it seems to favor proprietary software, even though open source software makes more sense from a engineering standpoint (IMO).

This won't change unless some laws are changed or the way of making software takes the early enlightenment model of creative development (work financed by sponsors/sugar daddies).

[benj1]

no.
you can make money being pure open source, i just think its more difficult, and perhaps the correct business model hasn't been found yet.
its like the internet, it is possible to make money from the internet, but how many pure internet companies (ie no physical products) are actually successful? google, yahoo? facebook isn't making any money, neither is youtube.

it is a problem that will be solved eventually, don't forget the concept of a business model based on giving stuff away wasn't considered 20 years ago, so i think it will take time for big companies to get used to.