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The simple answer is that enterprise companies often want open source for security and flexibility reasons, but they also want hosting, support, and custom serv
by mimixco 5y ago
The simple answer is that enterprise companies often want open source for security and flexibility reasons, but they also want hosting, support, and custom services. The world's largest open source software company, Red Hat (which IBM acquired in the largest buyout in software history), makes their money exactly this way.
Many smaller commercial open source companies like my own follow this same model. Google is another famous open source company (Android, Chrome, ML tools) with another way of monetizing that code.
- austincheney 5y agoI don’t think it’s fair to think of Google as an open source company. Everything at Google exist to reinforce search or advertising and those segments are not open.
- mimixco 5y agoThis is 100% my point. The idea that open source exists to make software free for "the people" is the biggest and most convenient lie in our industry. Open source exists because its easier to make money with software if you don't have to pay developers for the code you start with! How you make money is up to your business model. In the case of Google, that's the egregious advertising and surveillance business. As much as I dislike that, it is still a business that monetizes open source software.