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Problems With Open-Source Business Models

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Re: Problems With Open-Source Business Models

#91

Post by xte »

The problem is that we must mandate by law software to being open, easy to use, modify and deploy with simple means, that's to guarantee our freedom and democracy.

Than the business model instead of selling (cr)app and training and migration solutions, certifications, ... we can sell time&knowledge of programmers and operation.

Of course in this case many "administrative" & "marketers" will loose their job, but that's have a name: natural selection that it can be pushed a bit but sooner or later it will came by nature.

Re: Problems With Open-Source Business Models

#92

Post by buboard »

tomcam wrote: post #87
buboard wrote: post #29

This is almost absolutely correct. Pity there isn't even a model to monetize the blog post, though. Monetization is a problem across the internet that seems to benefit the behemoths. Perhaps we need a middle-ground between open source and proprietary? Open source often becomes a signal to find business partners with similar potential needs. Perhaps you could share source with only 'approved partners', so you can toge…

There are many ways one could monetize blog posts. It is not obvious to me that most blog posts are worth any money at all. Let’s take the best case scenario: How much are you willing to pay for the blogs that you read?

$0.20 per article. That's $300 CPM

Re: Problems With Open-Source Business Models

#93

Post by jondubois »

tinyvm wrote: post #34

I strongly disagree with the hypothesis raised in the article. First , most open source companies these days are Ventured Back ( Elastic , CockroachDB, MongoDB etc..) meaning the core of the issue isn't "AWS" not paying license fees or people creating tech on top of Open Source , it's VCs who want their money back times ten. Companies like MongoDB/Elastic have raised hundred of millions and yet are still not profitab…

Open source is not for VCs. VCs aren't good when it comes to creating value. The VC's job is to capitalize on hype. Hype doesn't go well with open source projects; it leads to dissillusioned customers later.

Re: Problems With Open-Source Business Models

#94

Post by tomcam »

buboard wrote: post #92
tomcam wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many ways one could monetize blog posts. It is not obvious to me that most blog posts are worth any money at all. Let’s take the best case scenario: How much are you willing to pay for the blogs that you read?

$0.20 per article. That's $300 CPM

That’s a fair number. I am ashamed to admit, however, that I suspect I would second-guess too many blog entries and decide it wasn’t worth the money. Weird. I am disappointed in myself. But I typically read at least dozens of blogs a day. It could really add up.

Re: Problems With Open-Source Business Models

#96

Post by buboard »

tomcam wrote: post #94
buboard wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$0.20 per article. That's $300 CPM

That’s a fair number. I am ashamed to admit, however, that I suspect I would second-guess too many blog entries and decide it wasn’t worth the money. Weird. I am disappointed in myself. But I typically read at least dozens of blogs a day. It could really add up.

oops $200 cpm. Still, $1-2 per day is nothing to fret about for most ppl in the west

Re: Problems With Open-Source Business Models

#97

Post by pritambaral »

c-smile wrote: post #85
zzzcpan wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Charging for software is unrelated to open source. You can open source your software under one license and charge for it under a different one.

Why do we need open source at all then?

You can charge for the source even under an open source license. Open-source is about giving the user certain freedoms, charging is about getting paid.

Re: Problems With Open-Source Business Models

#98

Post by cryptonector »

ChrisCinelli wrote: post #63
cryptonector wrote: post #43

The best open source business model I've seen yet is SQLite's. That business model goes as follows: 0. produce something very widely useful 1. wait for it to become essential 2. create a consortium and profit from the dependence bred by #0 Granted, bootstrapping that is really really difficult.

What are the main ways for the consortium to extract value from #0 ?

You'd have to ask them. I suspect the consortium compensates the developers. I've no idea how much that pays.

Re: Problems With Open-Source Business Models

#99

Post by kevinAtStorj »

wartakode wrote: post #83
kevinAtStorj wrote: post #82

While traditional cloud providers have certainly made it difficult for open source companies to monetize the cloud, it seems that the marriage between decentralized cloud protocols and open-source is opening up new opportunities for OSS monetization. Decentralization takes the principles of open source and applies them to the very infrastructure on which software runs. At Storj, for example, we have an Open Source Pa…

Hi @kevinAtStorj, I'm really interested with 'Amazon Problem', is any further reference with this company behavior? As I'm aware (personal experience) not only Amazon taking profit from open source, and there are more company use open source for their core product, but not giving any feedback to open source community. Thanks

Check out: https://storj.io/blog/2018/08/enabling-economic-empowerment-...

Re: Problems With Open-Source Business Models

#100

Post by yellowbuilding »

john_moscow wrote: post #71
ChrisCinelli wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That most of the VCs care is making attractive the company between their investment and their exit, it is completely true. That is also why quite often they bring in (and sometimes replace founders with) "professional" executives before the IPO. Some of these people are not usually the best people to maximize the long term trajectory of the company but they bring more confidence to IPO investors. If you want to have…

I find it funny how the ethical side of those games is always conveniently ignored...

Capitalism does lend itself well to technical innovation, which is beautiful but not ethical. And with that beauty comes technical debt in it’s cultural form: decadence.

The societal accomplishments of capitalism are effectively distraction and insulation from the side effects of complexity.

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