Impossible to compete with free software

Re:Impossible to compete with free software by callmeed on Friday March 06, 2009 @12:09PM (#505661)

I think its important not to think of free software as mutually exclusive with paid software.

It's been proven that you can create a profitable business by creating open-source/free software and building a business on top of that. Same goes for SaaS apps that have free plans.

Take a look at the article on Zimbra that was just posted. 40 million paid email boxes. Yet, there is an open-source version of Zimbra's software suite. Similar things going on for places like RedHat, MySQL, Google Apps, SugarCRM, etc.

You can create an open-source app and reap the benefits of it ... and still make money by:

- selling premium versions

- selling support

- selling hosting with per-seat licensing

- selling add-ons and custom development services

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Impossible to compete with free software by patio11 on Friday March 06, 2009 @12:52PM (#505714)

You can create an open-source app and reap the benefits of it ... and still make money by:

- using the OSS to power, sell, etc a closed source application

Anybody can come download my shopping cart any time they want. It still earned me a few hundred dollars this week.

See also Rails (open source framework powers immensely profitable closed source applications), etc.

[ Parent | on HN ]