The useful information is from Delivering Functionality on downward. This describes some of what it takes to sell to and collaborate with enterprises. It’s a path that might lead quite a few FOSS projects to profitability. Most just don’t know what it takes to get there or even have resources to get there. Knowing what it takes is a good start, though.
So to be really honest, one goal of this article was indeed share this knowledge, what does it take to sell to big enterprises. How can you make money with open source? Well, not with the software. A great article about sales to big enterprise is https://techcrunch.com/2010/11/13/new-enterprise-customer/?guccounter=1
Secondly, this article practices what it preaches - it tells people within large enterprises “we get it, we know how your company works, please buy from us”. So Friendlysock has a valid point. But I hope the educational part on FOSS sales was worth it.
Thanks for the article. It’s a good intro to the problems. I might share it with folks. I do want to address a potential myth:
“ How can you make money with open source? Well, not with the software.”
When arguing about licensing, I said that to folks on Hacker News. A few countered me that you can in fact sell GPL software. Stallman even encouraged it. Two examples were interesting. One said his company licensed tens of millions a year in GPL software to enterprises. That turned out to be SUSE, which maybe outlier like Red Hat. The other built custom software for mid-sized businesses which wasn’t necessarily a competitive advantage or secret sauce: just smoothed over internal processes. With company’s permission, he always licensed the apps as GPL since there’s potential benefits but no harm. There were also dual-licensed offerings but I’m focusing on F/OSS specifically.
They gave me a few reasons companies would buy FOSS. Primary one is someone to blame for problems. You mentioned that in your article but maybe overlooked how it carries onto selling FOSS. Some other people said licensing and support are looked at differently in many enterprise. One is a justifiable operational expense adding value with support something that’s considered a liability to minimize. I have little data on this claim past anecdotal experience of non-FOSS projects that did fit that pattern. Yet another was long-term viability with a vendor that had been around for a while and would be around for a while. That kind of fits in with support but is also risk management issue. That’s my list of reasons an enterprise might license F/OSS software that they could get for free with or without support.
Is this anything other than marketing copy?
Anything with the word “5G” so far seems to be marketing copy.
The useful information is from Delivering Functionality on downward. This describes some of what it takes to sell to and collaborate with enterprises. It’s a path that might lead quite a few FOSS projects to profitability. Most just don’t know what it takes to get there or even have resources to get there. Knowing what it takes is a good start, though.
So to be really honest, one goal of this article was indeed share this knowledge, what does it take to sell to big enterprises. How can you make money with open source? Well, not with the software. A great article about sales to big enterprise is https://techcrunch.com/2010/11/13/new-enterprise-customer/?guccounter=1
Secondly, this article practices what it preaches - it tells people within large enterprises “we get it, we know how your company works, please buy from us”. So Friendlysock has a valid point. But I hope the educational part on FOSS sales was worth it.
Thanks for the article. It’s a good intro to the problems. I might share it with folks. I do want to address a potential myth:
“ How can you make money with open source? Well, not with the software.”
When arguing about licensing, I said that to folks on Hacker News. A few countered me that you can in fact sell GPL software. Stallman even encouraged it. Two examples were interesting. One said his company licensed tens of millions a year in GPL software to enterprises. That turned out to be SUSE, which maybe outlier like Red Hat. The other built custom software for mid-sized businesses which wasn’t necessarily a competitive advantage or secret sauce: just smoothed over internal processes. With company’s permission, he always licensed the apps as GPL since there’s potential benefits but no harm. There were also dual-licensed offerings but I’m focusing on F/OSS specifically.
They gave me a few reasons companies would buy FOSS. Primary one is someone to blame for problems. You mentioned that in your article but maybe overlooked how it carries onto selling FOSS. Some other people said licensing and support are looked at differently in many enterprise. One is a justifiable operational expense adding value with support something that’s considered a liability to minimize. I have little data on this claim past anecdotal experience of non-FOSS projects that did fit that pattern. Yet another was long-term viability with a vendor that had been around for a while and would be around for a while. That kind of fits in with support but is also risk management issue. That’s my list of reasons an enterprise might license F/OSS software that they could get for free with or without support.
What’s your thoughts or experiences on those?