Professional open-source

Professional open-source is a business model that many open-source software vendors are attempting to follow. The model partners what is perceived as "free" open-source software with paid professional services.

History

As open-source software began to become popular in the 1990s with the introduction of Linux, there was a growing stigma that such a package could not be trusted as stable or supported.Fact|date=May 2008 As a consequence, larger businesses would often choose commercially distributed software over a product that was released under an open-source license. However, there has been the growth in the number of professional open-source companies - made popular by companies like Liferay, Inc., Red Hat, MySQL AB, and JBoss. The business model of these companies tries "to offer open-source software with a free license, while using professional services, maintenance and support for these products to derive revenue." [cite news | url = http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/02/16/75483_HNosbcprofessional_1.html | title =OSBC: Professional open source grows up
publisher = InfoWorld | date = February 16, 2006 | first = Elizabeth | last = Montalbano]

References

ee also

* Dual-licensing
* Vertical integration

External links

[http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/01/the_five_open_s.html | The Five Open Source Business Models]