8 ms·

This article made me realize that I don't know of any open source startup which got acquired for a significant sum of money. Can you name some that did?

kriro 12y ago
MySQL, 1 billion USD (2008).
- stevewilhelm 12y ago
  By Sun Microsystems http://web.archive.org/web/20110718044718/http://mysql.com/news-and-events/sun-to-acquire-mysql.html http://web.archive.org/web/20110718044718/http://mysql.com/n...
  - giancarlostoro 12y ago
    They bought it out yes, but the guy forked it and now develops MariaDB, which a few OS' have switched to after the Oracle take over. I'm sure he's enjoying still working on his project.
    - M8 12y ago
      A valuable lesson to those buying OSS companies.
      - rbanffy 12y ago
        It's a lesson for those who want OSS companies for the wrong reasons. I am quite sure had Oracle agreed to fund the development of MySQL into the Oracle RDMS killer it may eventually become, the fork would not happen. If I were Monty, I'd try to sell MariaDB to Larry Ellison for a billion dollars.
    - DonHopkins 12y ago
      A valuable lesson to those buying OSS companies with the intention of destroying the competition to their core product.
      - giancarlostoro 12y ago
        There's another side: IF the company does a great job, the OSS project becomes much more fruitful, however, if it doesn't do much of a great job, well you end up with MariaDB vs. MySQL and LibreOffice vs. OpenOffice (not sure they haven't bothered to merge). At least the GNU does what it was intended to do, stop companies from hijacking / buying out a software product and getting rid of it entirely.
      - rbanffy 12y ago
        I hope they never learn that lesson. Phineas Barnum was right and we can use the money better than Larry Ellison. At least, we can use it to build nice things for everyone to enjoy.
onion2k 12y ago
That's a very limited definition of "fail". If a company opens it's product, runs successfully for years, builds something people actually use, and eventually shuts down leaving a legacy of a piece of useful software, then that isn't really a failure. The investors would probably consider that business to have failed, in the sense that their gamble didn't pay off, but that's their problem. We don't have to think like investors.
- danielweber 12y ago
  It's a failure if any founders or employees took equity in lieu of significant salary. Within the past year I had the experience of "oh, you wrote X? We used that all the time at my last company!" "So will you hire me." "No."
sigi64 12y ago
www.gluster.org - https://www.redhat.com/promo/storage/press-release.html https://www.redhat.com/promo/storage/press-release.html - $136m
cozzyd 12y ago
Look at what RHEL acquires
- celebdor 12y ago
  RH acquires non open projects very commonly. It's after they start the acquisition that the closed products go open source.
edwinnathaniel 12y ago
JBoss by Redhat, $400m. SpringSource by VMWare, $382m. SuSE Linux AG by Novell, $210m. Trolltech (Qt) by Nokia, $153m.
boulos 12y ago
JBoss; acquired by RedHat for $420M in 2006 (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/JBoss_%28company%29 http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/JBoss_%28company%29)
bch 12y ago
Cannot speak to the $$, but CUPS was purchased by Apple[1] [1] http://iphone.appleinsider.com/articles/07/07/12/apple_acquires_cups_modular_printing_software http://iphone.appleinsider.com/articles/07/07/12/apple_acqui...
declan 12y ago
There was Cygnus Solutions, which I believe maintained GNU software (debugger, binutils) and contributed large parts of gcc. Cygnus was bought by Red Hat for $674M in 1999. HN folks may recognize EFF board member John Gilmore as the founder.
- fulafel 12y ago
  Cygnus were the go-to company for GCC/GNU related work for hire, like doing compiler toolchain and support for your new embedded platform/new cpu. Even the name was a recursive acronym, like GNU: "Cygnus, Your GNu Support"
- DonHopkins 12y ago
  And also Michael Tiemann (now at RedHat), and David Henkel-Wallace (now at Technical Illusions, making CastAR). Their slogan was "We make free software affordable". (In answer to the anti-slogans: "Free software: more expensive than money" and "Linux is only free if your time is worthless".) I asked David if they named the company "Cygnus" after grepping /usr/dict/words for "gnu". He answered no, because if they'd thought of doing that, they would have named it "Wingnut".
  - juliangregorian 12y ago
    Funny, but "wingnut" doesn't actually appear in /usr/dict/words
    - DonHopkins 12y ago
      The funniest thing is that David shot that back without missing a beat, with a perfectly straight face, and a somber tone that suggested he deeply regretted the missed opportunity. Did you know that the word "gnullable" wasn't in /usr/dict/words either?
      - juliangregorian 12y ago
        Yup, because I took 0.2 seconds to actually grep /usr/dict/words for "gnu" just recently.
ifdefdebug 12y ago
The problem here might be that those startups, at the time they got acquired, were not perceived any more as startups.
cageek 12y ago
$2.7 Billion dollars: snort -> sourcefire -> Cisco http://www.networkcomputing.com/careers-and-certifications/cisco-buys-ips-specialist-sourcefire-for-$27-billion/d/d-id/1234312 http://www.networkcomputing.com/careers-and-certifications/c...
- danielweber 12y ago
  Sourcefire significantly clamped down on the openness of Snort. Pushing out new versions with less-free licenses, and changing the alert format regularly. NB: I'm not saying they were wrong for this, because they've got to make money.
nullrouted 12y ago
XenSource --> Citrix $500 million Zimbra --> Yahoo $350 million Sleepycat --> Oracle Revolution Analytics --> Microsoft

kriro 12y ago

MySQL, 1 billion USD (2008).

stevewilhelm 12y ago
By Sun Microsystems http://web.archive.org/web/20110718044718/http://mysql.com/news-and-events/sun-to-acquire-mysql.html http://web.archive.org/web/20110718044718/http://mysql.com/n...
- giancarlostoro 12y ago
  They bought it out yes, but the guy forked it and now develops MariaDB, which a few OS' have switched to after the Oracle take over. I'm sure he's enjoying still working on his project.
  - M8 12y ago
    A valuable lesson to those buying OSS companies.
    - rbanffy 12y ago
      It's a lesson for those who want OSS companies for the wrong reasons. I am quite sure had Oracle agreed to fund the development of MySQL into the Oracle RDMS killer it may eventually become, the fork would not happen. If I were Monty, I'd try to sell MariaDB to Larry Ellison for a billion dollars.
  - DonHopkins 12y ago
    A valuable lesson to those buying OSS companies with the intention of destroying the competition to their core product.
    - giancarlostoro 12y ago
      There's another side: IF the company does a great job, the OSS project becomes much more fruitful, however, if it doesn't do much of a great job, well you end up with MariaDB vs. MySQL and LibreOffice vs. OpenOffice (not sure they haven't bothered to merge). At least the GNU does what it was intended to do, stop companies from hijacking / buying out a software product and getting rid of it entirely.
    - rbanffy 12y ago
      I hope they never learn that lesson. Phineas Barnum was right and we can use the money better than Larry Ellison. At least, we can use it to build nice things for everyone to enjoy.

onion2k 12y ago

That's a very limited definition of "fail". If a company opens it's product, runs successfully for years, builds something people actually use, and eventually shuts down leaving a legacy of a piece of useful software, then that isn't really a failure. The investors would probably consider that business to have failed, in the sense that their gamble didn't pay off, but that's their problem. We don't have to think like investors.

danielweber 12y ago
It's a failure if any founders or employees took equity in lieu of significant salary. Within the past year I had the experience of "oh, you wrote X? We used that all the time at my last company!" "So will you hire me." "No."

sigi64 12y ago

www.gluster.org - https://www.redhat.com/promo/storage/press-release.html https://www.redhat.com/promo/storage/press-release.html - $136m

cozzyd 12y ago

Look at what RHEL acquires

celebdor 12y ago
RH acquires non open projects very commonly. It's after they start the acquisition that the closed products go open source.

edwinnathaniel 12y ago

JBoss by Redhat, $400m. SpringSource by VMWare, $382m. SuSE Linux AG by Novell, $210m. Trolltech (Qt) by Nokia, $153m.

boulos 12y ago

JBoss; acquired by RedHat for $420M in 2006 (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/JBoss_%28company%29 http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/JBoss_%28company%29)

bch 12y ago

Cannot speak to the $$, but CUPS was purchased by Apple[1] [1] http://iphone.appleinsider.com/articles/07/07/12/apple_acquires_cups_modular_printing_software http://iphone.appleinsider.com/articles/07/07/12/apple_acqui...

declan 12y ago

There was Cygnus Solutions, which I believe maintained GNU software (debugger, binutils) and contributed large parts of gcc. Cygnus was bought by Red Hat for $674M in 1999. HN folks may recognize EFF board member John Gilmore as the founder.

fulafel 12y ago
Cygnus were the go-to company for GCC/GNU related work for hire, like doing compiler toolchain and support for your new embedded platform/new cpu. Even the name was a recursive acronym, like GNU: "Cygnus, Your GNu Support"
DonHopkins 12y ago
And also Michael Tiemann (now at RedHat), and David Henkel-Wallace (now at Technical Illusions, making CastAR). Their slogan was "We make free software affordable". (In answer to the anti-slogans: "Free software: more expensive than money" and "Linux is only free if your time is worthless".) I asked David if they named the company "Cygnus" after grepping /usr/dict/words for "gnu". He answered no, because if they'd thought of doing that, they would have named it "Wingnut".
- juliangregorian 12y ago
  Funny, but "wingnut" doesn't actually appear in /usr/dict/words
  - DonHopkins 12y ago
    The funniest thing is that David shot that back without missing a beat, with a perfectly straight face, and a somber tone that suggested he deeply regretted the missed opportunity. Did you know that the word "gnullable" wasn't in /usr/dict/words either?
    - juliangregorian 12y ago
      Yup, because I took 0.2 seconds to actually grep /usr/dict/words for "gnu" just recently.

ifdefdebug 12y ago

The problem here might be that those startups, at the time they got acquired, were not perceived any more as startups.

cageek 12y ago

$2.7 Billion dollars: snort -> sourcefire -> Cisco http://www.networkcomputing.com/careers-and-certifications/cisco-buys-ips-specialist-sourcefire-for-$27-billion/d/d-id/1234312 http://www.networkcomputing.com/careers-and-certifications/c...

danielweber 12y ago
Sourcefire significantly clamped down on the openness of Snort. Pushing out new versions with less-free licenses, and changing the alert format regularly. NB: I'm not saying they were wrong for this, because they've got to make money.

nullrouted 12y ago

XenSource --> Citrix $500 million Zimbra --> Yahoo $350 million Sleepycat --> Oracle Revolution Analytics --> Microsoft