The first point: You know as an end user, FOSS rocks and you would want
FOSS! Then you may have surely guessed why developing OSS widens your
market!
Suppose I have an company that has its own product. Now, Why would I
open source it? The main question i feel that a corporate cannot answer
to himself is: How is it gonna benefit me if i give away all the efforts
of my employees for free?
*Licenses*
I think the first thing that a corporate personnel should understand
about is: licenses.
*Many* people I've met have a WRONG idea of open source software. You
can always control how the other party uses your software by correctly
issuing licenses. You can distribute your product with a
restrictive-but-open-source license (such as CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). More
about Open source licenses can be searched online!
*See The Another Business Model*
But first, You need to be sure about the benefits of open source
softwares from a neutral (non-business) point of view.
1. Bugs
"As a large number of users can access and change the code, bugs tend to
be more visible and more rapidly corrected in open source softwares."
2. Customization and Enhancement
An open source software always has large room of customization and
enhancement, which is great for end-users. They can just issue another
subcontractor to write the enhancements for them or use the software to
their own needs. It also provides room for translation of the software
to different languages by the people in need.
3. Security
For various reasons, open source software is more secure than the closed
source. Many people have the misconception that making the source code
open will make the system vulnerable. Incorrect! It just makes your
system secure.
Now that some (important) points of OSS are discussed, we finally come
to making money.
1. Sell the Service, not the Software!
As mentioned by a lot of good peoples before me, the basic model of Open
Source Software is to sell your support! And It's better than selling
the software.
2. Your Software Production Costs Are Greatly Reduced!
Since there are a lot of people and organizations involved in making the
software, the software production and maintenance costs are reduced.
3. You're Making The World a Better Place.
Well, this is a philosophical point. But you can show your CSR by
contributing to open source softwares.
Here are the links that I visited to compile these points. Going through
these may give a clear(er) view on open source softwares.
[1] http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/01/yes-you-can-make-money-with-op/ --
Yes, You Can Make Money with Open Source - Igor Faletski - Harvard
Business Review
[2]
http://www.linuxit.com/Portals/154143/docs/5-common-myths-open-source-infographic.pdf
-- 5-common-myths-open-source-infographic.pdf
[3]
http://opensourceforamerica.org/learn-more/benefits-of-open-source-software/
-- Benefits of Open Source Software | Open Source for America
[4] http://oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/whoneedssource -- Benefits of open
source code
[5] http://eu.conecta.it/paper/Advantages_open_source_soft.html --
Advantages of open source software
[6]
http://opensource.about.com/od/basics/tp/5-Ways-To-Make-Money-With-Open-Source-Software.htm
-- 5 Ways to Make Money With Open Source Software
On ???????? 07 ????? 2014 07:48 ???????, Sushil Ale Magar wrote:
Hi all,
I'm trying to get some idea about foss. We can generally define what
is foss and how can we get benifits from it as an end user but I don't
have clear idea from the developers point of view. As a corporate
business house, we want profit. we can see many big organisations have
invested on open source project. Why do they invest a lot in foss
project?
I hope you will provide me some ideas and resources from which i can
get clear view.
Best Regards,
--
cipher
fb/twitter/github: nootanghimire
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