Selling Open Source As A Service

The winning open source model turns open source 1.0 on its head. By packaging open source into a service (as in cloud computing or software-as-a-service) or as a software or hardware appliance, companies can monetize open source with a far more robust and flexible model, encouraging innovation, and on-going investment in software development.
Many of today’s most successful new companies rely on an ecosystem of standardized open source components that are generally re-used and updated by the industry at-large. Companies who use these open source building blocks are more than happy to contribute to their ongoing success. These open source building blocks are the foundation of all modern cloud and SaaS offerings, and they are being monetized beautifully in many cases.
Depending on the company and the product, an organization may develop more open source software specific to their business or build some amount of proprietary software to complete the product offering. Amazon, Facebook, GitHub and scores of others mix open source components with their own proprietary code, and then sell the combination as a service.
This recipe – combining open source with a service or appliance model – is producing staggering results across the software landscape. Cloud and SaaS adoption is accelerating at an order of magnitude faster than on-premise deployments, and open source has been the enabler of this transformation.
Beyond SaaS, I would expect there to be future models for Open Source monetization, which is great for the industry.
So what are you waiting for?
Build a big business on top of and around a successful platform by adding something of your own that is both substantial and differentiated. Take, for example, our national road and highway system. If you view it as the transportation platform, you start to see the host of highly differentiated businesses that have been built on top of it, ranging from FedEx to Tesla. The ridesharing service Lyft is building its business on top of that same transportation platform, as well as Amazon’s AWS platform.
If you extend that platform worldview, Red Hat’s support model amounts to selling a slightly better version of the road – in this case, the Linux operating system – which is already good enough for most people.
Sure, when you first launch a business built using open source components, it’s important to grow the size of the platform and cater to your early adopters to drive initial success. So you might start off looking a little like Red Hat. But if all goes well, you’ll start to more resemble Facebook, GitHub, Amazon or Cumulus Networks as you layer in your own special something on top of the platform and deliver it as a service, or package it as an appliance. Becoming the next Red Hat is an admirable goal, but when you look at the trends today, maybe even Red Hat should think about becoming the next Amazon.