[seiji]

Office and Windows. Okay, now where do they make their money? They're pretty much just left with services work, and services and support often only exist if the software has problems.

Did you just casually imply Office and Windows don't have problems?

Fun fact: open source support isn't about fixing problems, it's about having someone to contractually blame in case of any problems, not because there are problems. It's more CYA and less TBD.

Also see the MonogDB model — release an open source platform full of bugs and data loss edge cases, target people who don't really know what they're doing so they build prototypes and platforms on top of it, then tell companies they have to pay you if they want any help (and they will need help since the platform is fundamentally flawed in the first place).

Anybody else can then come along

Technically, yes. But has that ever happened? If you open source your 5 million line code base, you still have the expertise, not some outsider.

There's also the reverse problem of open source platforms with no owner (e.g. the ecosystem of ever-growing, zero-authority hadoop vomit).

Open sourcing needs to have a valid business strategy

The valid business strategy is nobody will trust you if you aren't open source these days. The age of vendor-vanish = product-vanish is quickly going away. Companies (as buyers) prefer widely used and open source solutions in favor of closed source voodoo that works "just because we say so" with bad documentation and a tiny userbase.

[justintocci]

>The valid business strategy is nobody will trust you if you aren't open source these days.

i disagree. there are many big saas businesses out there and few open source anything.

[bane]

> Did you just casually imply Office and Windows don't have problems?

No, I think you misread or I wasn't clear. Microsoft (and other companies) support service contracts exist purely because of inadequacies in the software. Microsoft wins twice because they sell the software and sell/certify the service organizations.

> Technically, yes. But has that ever happened? If you open source your 5 million line code base, you still have the expertise, not some outsider.

Yes. Why do you think your employees will stay with your company forever?

All a competitor has to do is put out a job req "looking for expert in foo, will pay top $$$" and hire away your expert staff. This does happen and it often happens because purchasing organizations prefer to "separate interests" between vendors and service companies hoping that it forces vendors to build better software that require fewer services. This creates a market for service competitors, and if they're willing to make smaller margins, can pay your people, the people you have in your company doing service work more.

For example, how many people who don't work for Red Hat offer Red Hat support services?

> The valid business strategy is nobody will trust you if you aren't open source these days.

I don't really disagree. Which is why you need to have a strategy that lets you check the "is open source" box with a buyer, while still protecting your business advantage.

[seiji]

For example, how many people who don't work for Red Hat offer Red Hat support services?

Oh, I've no idea. I'd only go to RedHat for "official" RedHat support?

Another intersecting approach is something like Postgres or MySQL. The ownership of the code is irrelevant at this point and we just have independent consultancies (or integrators) providing expert-level services. But, that's almost a complete inversion of the original premise here of open sourcing your own product while retaining product control + revenue from control of said product. (which sounds like what you're afraid of most general "we open sourced our product" situations devolving into.)

In general, I've seen little interest from random Internet companies in providing support for private open sourced software. Nobody wants to spend months/years understanding your software to compete against your knowledge/expertise (unless you get really successful, but that's a whole other game).

[bane]

> Oh, I've no idea. I'd only go to RedHat for "official" RedHat support?

Let's just say, it's pretty big.

Bonus, you don't need to hire an outside firm to administer your Red Hat servers if you just hire somebody with "can administer Red Hat" on a job req.

Here's a short list just to fill out your curiosity (the real one is likely much longer):

http://www.linuxit.com/linux-support-services/

http://www.dcvast.com/software_support_services/redhat_linux...

http://www.netdigix.com/

http://h17007.www1.hp.com/us/en/enterprise/servers/supportma...

and so on.

Red Hat as a company more or less exists these days on name brand. In fact, their EBITD margin is negative despite their stock price riding high.