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Wasn't aware Red Hat was a lifestyle business. That is a pretty big lifestyle with the billions of revenue.

by zanny 10y ago

agibsonccc 10y ago
Red hat sells updates to their software + packaging. Horton also does this. They also sell apps on top of their platform. My point is: their model isn't just consulting. Cloudera is open core for their hadoop distro. Mesosphere tried closed source with DC/OS and it didn't quite work for them, but they also don't sell consulting. Docker as a business is also trying to monetize via NON consulting ways. These companies' goals are all to scale bigger though. Something to keep in mind though - red hat is a rounding error compared to say: microsoft. A lot of open source investors are looking for an open core model now. As I described there's different ways to go about it. We chose open core for ourselves though.
- sytse 10y ago
  At GitLab we considered to charge for the packaging (our Omnibus packages and the package server). We decided to go for a GitLab version that was 100% open source and easy to install and a GitLab version that was closed source, contained additional features and was equally easy to install. Apart from RedHat few companies have been able to make the packaging work as a business model from a financial perspective. Hortonworks shows it is hard to make money with packaging alone http://www.infoworld.com/article/2854359/hadoop/why-hortonworks-cant-sustain-a-billion-dollar-unicorn-valuation.html http://www.infoworld.com/article/2854359/hadoop/why-hortonwo...
  - agibsonccc 10y ago
    I agree completely. We have pretty similar business models after all ;). We've been going upstream selling a "distro" usually with other stuff bundled in.
troydavis 10y ago
Could you cite any other example(s)? If not, that Red Hat is the outlier (1 company in 20 years) seems to strengthen the prior commenter's point.
- danieldk 10y ago
  MySQL AB before the Oracle acquisition. Troll Tech before Nokia. They did sell licenses for proprietary use, but what was sold was completely open source (under a viral license).
  - goseeastarwar 10y ago
    Neither of those have revenue close to RedHat. Futhermore, the irony of RedHat being the exception that proves the rule that there's far less money in open source, is that its revenue is minuscule when compared to closed-source tech giants.

Wasn't aware Red Hat was a lifestyle business. That is a pretty big lifestyle with the billions of revenue.

by zanny 10y ago

Wasn't aware Red Hat was a lifestyle business. That is a pretty big lifestyle with the billions of revenue.

Red hat sells updates to their software + packaging. Horton also does this. They also sell apps on top of their platform. My point is: their model isn't just consulting. Cloudera is open core for their hadoop distro. Mesosphere tried closed source with DC/OS and it didn't quite work for them, but they also don't sell consulting. Docker as a business is also trying to monetize via NON consulting ways. These companies' goals are all to scale bigger though. Something to keep in mind though - red hat is a rounding error compared to say: microsoft. A lot of open source investors are looking for an open core model now. As I described there's different ways to go about it. We chose open core for ourselves though.

sytse 10y ago
At GitLab we considered to charge for the packaging (our Omnibus packages and the package server). We decided to go for a GitLab version that was 100% open source and easy to install and a GitLab version that was closed source, contained additional features and was equally easy to install. Apart from RedHat few companies have been able to make the packaging work as a business model from a financial perspective. Hortonworks shows it is hard to make money with packaging alone http://www.infoworld.com/article/2854359/hadoop/why-hortonworks-cant-sustain-a-billion-dollar-unicorn-valuation.html http://www.infoworld.com/article/2854359/hadoop/why-hortonwo...
- agibsonccc 10y ago
  I agree completely. We have pretty similar business models after all ;). We've been going upstream selling a "distro" usually with other stuff bundled in.

troydavis 10y ago

Could you cite any other example(s)? If not, that Red Hat is the outlier (1 company in 20 years) seems to strengthen the prior commenter's point.

danieldk 10y ago
MySQL AB before the Oracle acquisition. Troll Tech before Nokia. They did sell licenses for proprietary use, but what was sold was completely open source (under a viral license).
- goseeastarwar 10y ago
  Neither of those have revenue close to RedHat. Futhermore, the irony of RedHat being the exception that proves the rule that there's far less money in open source, is that its revenue is minuscule when compared to closed-source tech giants.