How goes the open source business model?

[t0p]

I know nothing about corporate finance. I don't read the Money section of news websites. I wouldn't know how to research this question. So I'll pose it here instead.

How are Canonical, Red Hat, Mozilla and their ilk doing? How profitable is the free software business?

[zmjjmz]

Canonical isn't profiting from Ubuntu, but I don't think Shuttleworth really cares.
red Hat and Novell are making brisk business, and Google and Mozilla are in bed with each other.

[Sealbhach]

They sell support by subscription. I think Red Hat actually makes money from that - charging support to businesses for mission-critical systems.


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[zmjjmz]

They sell support by subscription. I think Red Hat actually makes money from that - charging support to businesses for mission-critical systems.

But the question is; how is that going for ya?
Well, MS is also making money off of it.

[t0p]

red Hat and Novell are making brisk business, and Google and Mozilla are in bed with each other.

I asked about their profitability not their promiscuity! :p

[cardinals_fan]

I asked about their profitability not their promiscuity! :p
Same thing, in this case. Google pays Mozilla to be the default search engine in Firefox.

Red Hat and Novell make a lot of money by selling support licenses to the enterprise. Xandros has a small but lucrative clientele for some of their server products. Canonical hasn't broken even yet, but Mark Shuttleworth won't be calling in their startup loan anytime soon.

[TBOL3]

You know, with how much of a dreamer Mark is, I wouldn't be supprised if he started selling open computers, with ubuntu on them. That would make him some $$$. Or maybe not, depending on if he wants to overprice it or not.

[aysiu]

Read How does open source make money? (http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntucat/how-does-open-source-make-money/)