I’ve been asked a billion times or so how one can make money with Open Source Software. My answers varied depending on who was actually asking the question, my mood at the time, and the availability of free time to go into details. But, as far as I can remember, I’ve always at least mentioned commercial support and customization.
But telling plain theory is a waste of time, unless good examples are given. And the examples have the tendency of getting outdated and forgotten pretty fast. So, it’s always good to refresh the stack of them.
One of the most recent ones that I’ve added to the list is WordPress. You can read all about it here. Hopefully, more information will be available later. I’d love to see the amounts of money, man-hours, and clients, as well as all the other details.
Useful update on WordPress support…actually, it was quite interesting to note that it was mentioned in the article that many large organizations wanted (and insisted on) paid support even though there were WP Support forums. Logic: Companies felt it safe to have someone paid to give support while installing/using such an open source product rather than purely relying on volunteer support…
Now, does this mean that a product that was produced by volunteers and offered at no cost could be a robust one, but a support service offered by volunteers for no cost might not be perceived as robust enough? Just some thoughts…
One of our teams is also are putting up a page @ eIT.in on the WWW resources for the topic making money from open source…any link suggestions would be welcome
EC @ BPO Database Online @ eBPO.in