Succeeding with Open Source

Executive Summary

Isn't the phrase “open source business model” an oxymoron? How can there be a business model for something that's given away for free? It might seem counterintuitive, but there are open source software companies that make a living selling open source products. Just as bottled water companies successfully market a product available at no cost or negligible cost from a convenient location (your kitchen tap), inventive entrepreneurs have created a number of business models based on open source software.

Although the vast majority of open source products are available only as free downloadable software, a number of open source products have commercial entities associated with them. To understand how you can take advantage of open ...