On Open Source Project and comercializing them

I got to think about the commercialization of Open Source software project happen these days. Many of them have been acquired by larger companies, or are about to, and I think a discussion here is important. By which I in no way think I have all the answers, quite the opposite, this post is more about raising questions, and maybe propose a few possible answers.

So, do we really need commercialization of the project? And if you ask me (but I am a Sales Engineer after all, so what do you expect from me), I think the answer must be yes. And then the question is how this is best done. I think we can agree that Open Source, as a development model is just great, but to keep it going, something more is needed. And there are reasons why we want commercialization of these projects. Among them, in my mind, are:

• A commercial entity is needed for many things related to the project, such as partnerships, contacts, employees etc.
• Some things are best done on a commercial basis. Certain things that are part of development of a larger project, things where it is just too hard to find Open Source volunteers to work on the project. And there are such aspects, such as Q&A, docs etc.
• And last but not least, long term stability. In the world of large legacy enterprise installations, things are different than in your average webshop or more modern enterprises, such as Google, Yahoo etc. There just isn't competence enough to drive development of important software projects yourself. You just cannot expect them to take up continued development of some Open Source project, if the project should fail or the main developers leave the project or something. In that instance, someone must pick up where the Open Source project left off, and continue development, at least for existing paying users.

So, how do we go ahead with this then? Most successful Open Source project of some size has some kind of commercial sponsors anyway. But we don't want these to "kidnap" the project anyway. Not because they are evil, but because it just happens. In the case of MySQL for example, it did happen to an extent. Largely, the whole development of MySQL ended up with the MySQL company. The effects if this may be debated, but it did happen, this is no secret. And we are trying to fix this, but it is not that easy. There are some reasons for this, like the dual-licensing model, but I think that could have been fixed I think, if it had been considered earlier on.

My idea for a solution to this dilemma is to let the project have two different entities drive it, the Open Source Company and the Project. These two are closely linked, but are still separate. The different responsibilities should be clear, as should any licensing issues. If we look at Red Hat versus Fedora, I think this is pretty good model. One might debate that RHEL is a bit slow in reacting to new features and developments, and Fedora too fast, but these are details.

Commercial Open Source is what we need a model for. And in my mind then, this model should not be there at the cost of the Open Source Project itself. No, they should vitalize each other, but still have different goal and end users, largely. And no, I do not for one minute believe that a reasonable large Open Source Project could survive just by adding tech support and PS to an existing project, and live from that. I am a strong believer in the fact that the commercial Linux vendors, like Red Hat, SuSE etc has done the Linux a much bigger favour than you think. The reason is that having a commercial vendor behind something like Linux, means that many more dare trying it and using it. You think everyone can use and learn Linux? And anyone can support it? Well, if you have a system that is at the core of your business or is critical to what you do in general, then you have to ensure long term stability. And I mean long term. Asking a question on a Linux form doesn't help in the long run. You might get an answer today, but what about tomorrow? And buying tech-support from some Local Linux expert is fine, but what about long terms? No, we need commercial entities here, just like we need the Open Source projects themselves. And I think that we should be looking for a model where these two can live side-by-side, not in competition, but adding value to each other. I think RedHat has done a good job here. I think MySQL is improving a lot here, but I this still need to be discussed.

/Karlsson
Getting philosophical