These are all great questions to ask about any software that powers a business. Of course, if you are "selling" software on the basis of the question "who are y

These are all great questions to ask about any software that powers a business. Of course, if you are "selling" software on the basis of the question "who are you going to call?", then you have to embrace the fact that you are not in the software business, you're in the "You can call me" business. You're really in the software support business. Everything about your pricing model is really a kind of fiction. The charge up front, the license, everything. It's really a support business, pure and simple. Oracle and IBM know this, and so do their customers. And thus the business proposition as a developer comes down to: 1. If I'm in the support business, writing and selling my own software places my customers in thrall to me. I have a monopoly on support. Of course, that means they have a certain risk since I'm the sole vendor. And I have to develop the software and compete with other vendors just to get a customer for my support business, which has a certain risk. 2. If I'm in the support business, supporting free software outsources the part of my business that isn't my core value proposition, and lets me focus on the value I charge for.