6 ms·

What are examples of successful(profitable) open source companies?

by akras14 11y ago

feld 11y ago
RedHat for one. Varnish maybe? Ansible (now RedHat!), Salt, Puppet likely Citrix via Xen should be doing alright
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- SwellJoe 11y ago
  To be clear: Red Hat is a $billion business that is purely Open Source (nothing they sell or do is not open source, and when they acquire things that aren't open, they open them within weeks or months of acquisition), which is pretty amazing. I've been involved in Open Source based businesses for almost two decades now, and I still don't grasp how to build a billion dollar business on entirely open source software (though I've made a decent living at it most of that time). But, I stubbornly keep trying.
  - niels_olson 11y ago
    > I still don't grasp how to build a billion dollar business on entirely open source software Get you software installed on every machine in every DoD HPC facility, and probably a lot of DoE too.
    - SwellJoe 11y ago
      You mean I have to deal with government purchasing processes? No thanks. I guess I'll never build that billion dollar OSS company. Or, maybe I can hire someone to handle that part of the equation.
seiji 11y ago
If you cheat the definition, you could say Apple has opened some code, therefore they are an open source company. But, clearly that's not what's in play here. It's difficult to be an open source startup because it's easy to get a big ego and start doing software wrong. You don't get people to use your software by saying "LOOK! We have VCs. Trust us. Buy our support contracts!" You get people to use your software by making good features, growing by word of mouth, then you're entrenched and can start milking the support cow. Your word-of-mouth features don't even have to work (coughmongocough), they just have to be easy to brag about so developers get ego boosts by telling others "hey, look, i found this thing and you should think I'm cool because I'm telling you about it." Another really important point: open source companies aren't proven. The current crop of open source startup VC funded happy towns are all experiments. It's very possible you can't create sustainable open source software companies (support contracts aren't zero margin software products, and nobody buys software anymore because lol "it's free!!!"). There's no natural "supernormal profit" engine if you make a good, clean, understandable open source product. In fact, it's actually the opposite: open source companies get big when the product is garbage (or too complex) because then everybody needs support to CYA against higher management. (I've been thinking about writing a few articles about all this in January. Stay tuned.)
- CM30 11y ago
  Or perhaps (and here's a potentially worrying thought), we'll get open source software making any proprietary stuff impossible to sell. Like how the app store has become filled with 'freemium' apps and 99 cent paid apps. Open source would definitely be eating the world... though quite a few companies wouldn't be very happy in the process.
  - seiji 11y ago
    making any proprietary stuff impossible to sell. That is the end goal, right? Your margin is my opportunity. The problem in the middle is: open source software is considered free-as-in-never-pay-me free. I have multibillion dollar companies using some of my open source software. They've never paid me anything. They ask for bug fixes and feature improvements that would take me six months (or more) of full time work. They don't offer to pay (or then even balk at the thought), they just keep saying "you should support us for free because it's open source." Part of the "we won't/can't pay" is due to programmers being very low status people in organizations. Programmers don't have budgets to buy anything because "lol free open source" and "it's just code, do whatever." If programmers could allocate resources towards getting features/fixes they need from external projects, the software world could be more... synergistic.
jacquesm 11y ago
Canonical, MySQL (now Oracle), Zimbra (now VMware), Zend, Gluster (also acquired, I forgot by who) and a whole bunch of others are or were at some point open source companies. Pure open source software companies are relatively few in number but companies that contribute to open source and profit from that open source in that they have a lot more people working on the code and taking care of bug spotting and bug fixing is considerable. One nice example of that is Basecamp. Open source companies that are successful are acquired at a relatively high rate so they don't usually last as such independently.
- chei0aiV 11y ago
  Is Canonical actually profitable yet?
- seiji 11y ago
  Open source companies that are successful are acquired Acquisitions aren't success though. It's just "failing upwards" for the founders. Successful companies are self sustaining.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    That depends on the goals of the founders.
    - scott_karana 11y ago
      Doesn't it just make the founders and investors successful, but not the company? Just look at Carousel and Mailbox today... ;)
      - jacquesm 11y ago
        It can go either way. But an acquisition can be a success. For instance Android.
        seiji 11y ago
yarrel 11y ago
Google, Apple, IBM, Microsoft. What are examples of successful (profitable) proprietary software companies?
- tedunangst 11y ago
  EA, Blizzard, id, Valve.
  - oblio 11y ago
    Oracle.
jchrisa 11y ago
The Couchbase business model makes our customers happy.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
EGreg 11y ago
We are an open source company that's profitable, and proud of it. We want to create an open source ecosystem like Wordpress but not capture all the value created around it. http://Qbix.com http://Qbix.com
- eatonphil 11y ago
  What on earth is going on with your header? You have four options that look like links (Qbix, Apps, Platform, Blog) but I cannot click on them. I cannot imagine what I am doing wrong. I tried clicking on them for 10-15 seconds before I realized nothing was happening. You have tons of Javascript reference errors. Are those links created in Javascript using onclick? Whether they are links or not, that header might be worth rethinking... (I am running Chromium 46 on FreeBSD/Mate.)
  - EGreg 11y ago
    What are these Javascript reference errors? I will try to reproduce them. Very strange, the javascript passed all the linting and worked on all the browsers in our test array.
    - eatonphil 11y ago
      http://imgur.com/wSiyECY http://imgur.com/wSiyECY
YorickPeterse 11y ago
GitLab
gramakri 11y ago
docker? not sure if it's profitable, but definitely very successful
- JustSomeNobody 11y ago
  Wait, what?
  - sanderjd 11y ago
    If this comment implies that Docker is profitable, it would be nice if you expanded a bit, because your parent commenter and myself, while (obviously) being aware of Docker, aren't aware of how profitable they are or (speaking for myself) what they make their money on.
    - JustSomeNobody 11y ago
      No, it means how is docker successful if it's not profitable.
      - sanderjd 11y ago
        Gotcha, thanks, I mis-assumed your meaning.
      - gramakri 11y ago
        Success is subjective, profitability is not. we all have different metrics for success. Though I agree that metric for success for a company is probably profitability but you will find people disagree with you on that as well.
praveenster 11y ago
rethinkdb https://www.rethinkdb.com/ https://www.rethinkdb.com/
- sanderjd 11y ago
  It looks like they sell training and support. Are you aware of them being profitable with those offerings? If so, that's great!

What are examples of successful(profitable) open source companies?

by akras14 11y ago

What are examples of successful(profitable) open source companies?

feld 11y ago

RedHat for one. Varnish maybe? Ansible (now RedHat!), Salt, Puppet likely Citrix via Xen should be doing alright

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
SwellJoe 11y ago
To be clear: Red Hat is a $billion business that is purely Open Source (nothing they sell or do is not open source, and when they acquire things that aren't open, they open them within weeks or months of acquisition), which is pretty amazing. I've been involved in Open Source based businesses for almost two decades now, and I still don't grasp how to build a billion dollar business on entirely open source software (though I've made a decent living at it most of that time). But, I stubbornly keep trying.
- niels_olson 11y ago
  > I still don't grasp how to build a billion dollar business on entirely open source software Get you software installed on every machine in every DoD HPC facility, and probably a lot of DoE too.
  - SwellJoe 11y ago
    You mean I have to deal with government purchasing processes? No thanks. I guess I'll never build that billion dollar OSS company. Or, maybe I can hire someone to handle that part of the equation.

seiji 11y ago

If you cheat the definition, you could say Apple has opened some code, therefore they are an open source company. But, clearly that's not what's in play here. It's difficult to be an open source startup because it's easy to get a big ego and start doing software wrong. You don't get people to use your software by saying "LOOK! We have VCs. Trust us. Buy our support contracts!" You get people to use your software by making good features, growing by word of mouth, then you're entrenched and can start milking the support cow. Your word-of-mouth features don't even have to work (coughmongocough), they just have to be easy to brag about so developers get ego boosts by telling others "hey, look, i found this thing and you should think I'm cool because I'm telling you about it." Another really important point: open source companies aren't proven. The current crop of open source startup VC funded happy towns are all experiments. It's very possible you can't create sustainable open source software companies (support contracts aren't zero margin software products, and nobody buys software anymore because lol "it's free!!!"). There's no natural "supernormal profit" engine if you make a good, clean, understandable open source product. In fact, it's actually the opposite: open source companies get big when the product is garbage (or too complex) because then everybody needs support to CYA against higher management. (I've been thinking about writing a few articles about all this in January. Stay tuned.)

CM30 11y ago
Or perhaps (and here's a potentially worrying thought), we'll get open source software making any proprietary stuff impossible to sell. Like how the app store has become filled with 'freemium' apps and 99 cent paid apps. Open source would definitely be eating the world... though quite a few companies wouldn't be very happy in the process.
- seiji 11y ago
  making any proprietary stuff impossible to sell. That is the end goal, right? Your margin is my opportunity. The problem in the middle is: open source software is considered free-as-in-never-pay-me free. I have multibillion dollar companies using some of my open source software. They've never paid me anything. They ask for bug fixes and feature improvements that would take me six months (or more) of full time work. They don't offer to pay (or then even balk at the thought), they just keep saying "you should support us for free because it's open source." Part of the "we won't/can't pay" is due to programmers being very low status people in organizations. Programmers don't have budgets to buy anything because "lol free open source" and "it's just code, do whatever." If programmers could allocate resources towards getting features/fixes they need from external projects, the software world could be more... synergistic.

jacquesm 11y ago

Canonical, MySQL (now Oracle), Zimbra (now VMware), Zend, Gluster (also acquired, I forgot by who) and a whole bunch of others are or were at some point open source companies. Pure open source software companies are relatively few in number but companies that contribute to open source and profit from that open source in that they have a lot more people working on the code and taking care of bug spotting and bug fixing is considerable. One nice example of that is Basecamp. Open source companies that are successful are acquired at a relatively high rate so they don't usually last as such independently.

chei0aiV 11y ago
Is Canonical actually profitable yet?
seiji 11y ago
Open source companies that are successful are acquired Acquisitions aren't success though. It's just "failing upwards" for the founders. Successful companies are self sustaining.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  That depends on the goals of the founders.
  - scott_karana 11y ago
    Doesn't it just make the founders and investors successful, but not the company? Just look at Carousel and Mailbox today... ;)
    - jacquesm 11y ago
      It can go either way. But an acquisition can be a success. For instance Android.
      - seiji 11y ago

yarrel 11y ago

Google, Apple, IBM, Microsoft. What are examples of successful (profitable) proprietary software companies?

tedunangst 11y ago
EA, Blizzard, id, Valve.
- oblio 11y ago
  Oracle.

jchrisa 11y ago

The Couchbase business model makes our customers happy.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

EGreg 11y ago

We are an open source company that's profitable, and proud of it. We want to create an open source ecosystem like Wordpress but not capture all the value created around it. http://Qbix.com http://Qbix.com

eatonphil 11y ago
What on earth is going on with your header? You have four options that look like links (Qbix, Apps, Platform, Blog) but I cannot click on them. I cannot imagine what I am doing wrong. I tried clicking on them for 10-15 seconds before I realized nothing was happening. You have tons of Javascript reference errors. Are those links created in Javascript using onclick? Whether they are links or not, that header might be worth rethinking... (I am running Chromium 46 on FreeBSD/Mate.)
- EGreg 11y ago
  What are these Javascript reference errors? I will try to reproduce them. Very strange, the javascript passed all the linting and worked on all the browsers in our test array.
  - eatonphil 11y ago
    http://imgur.com/wSiyECY http://imgur.com/wSiyECY

YorickPeterse 11y ago

GitLab

gramakri 11y ago

docker? not sure if it's profitable, but definitely very successful

JustSomeNobody 11y ago
Wait, what?
- sanderjd 11y ago
  If this comment implies that Docker is profitable, it would be nice if you expanded a bit, because your parent commenter and myself, while (obviously) being aware of Docker, aren't aware of how profitable they are or (speaking for myself) what they make their money on.
  - JustSomeNobody 11y ago
    No, it means how is docker successful if it's not profitable.
    - sanderjd 11y ago
      Gotcha, thanks, I mis-assumed your meaning.
    - gramakri 11y ago
      Success is subjective, profitability is not. we all have different metrics for success. Though I agree that metric for success for a company is probably profitability but you will find people disagree with you on that as well.

praveenster 11y ago

rethinkdb https://www.rethinkdb.com/ https://www.rethinkdb.com/

sanderjd 11y ago
It looks like they sell training and support. Are you aware of them being profitable with those offerings? If so, that's great!