"Build a scalable service on top of something open source, rather than T&M services." 37Signals/Basecamp are an interesting example of this. Rather than buildi

"Build a scalable service on top of something open source, rather than T&M services." 37Signals/Basecamp are an interesting example of this. Rather than building a business around supporting Ruby on Rails, they've built products on top of the framework they created. It's certainly an outlier and I can't think of many other examples like them who both built a popular tool, but then just used it as a tool instead of trying to monetize it directly. DHH wrote: "External, expected rewards diminish the intrinsic motivation of the fundraising open-source contributor. It risks transporting a community of peers into a transactional terminal. And that buyer-seller frame detracts from the magic that is peer-collaborators. It also holds the threat of corrupting the community at large. We plant the seeds of discontent by selective monetary rewards." http://david.heinemeierhansson.com/2013/the-perils-of-mixing-open-source-and-money.html http://david.heinemeierhansson.com/2013/the-perils-of-mixing... I've certainly seen this recently in some open-source communities. The peer-to-peer camaraderie transitions to a dictator-to-underlings relationship and people start defecting. It's sad to see, but happens when an open-source company isn't vigilant in nurturing the community that got them where they are. Kudos to those companies that are able to pull off maintaining a strong community while still staying focused. It's a rare thing to be able to do well and behind the scenes there's a lot of work that goes into that kind of nurturing.