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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 c
by 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 agoAt 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 agoI agree completely. We have pretty similar business models after all ;). We've been going upstream selling a "distro" usually with other stuff bundled in.