The open source definition is over 20 years old. Cloudera and Hortonworks have completed their all-stock merger of their software companies. Major companies in the open source ecosystem are being snapped up by traditional IT companies. Seems like a good business model, yes? But Stephen would like to observe that despite these successes, there is NO open source business model.
Jeffrey would beg to differ! From data centers to the cloud, from self-driving cars to drones - open source software is everywhere. Major enterprise companies that are bottom-line driven are changing the way they participate in open source, starting to actively engage and contribute to open source projects - not just consume them as products. Having OS in your business model looks great, or does it?
Over the last year a major conflict has emerged between Cloud Platforms and VCs looking to make $$$ with open source.
Workshop - Best of Both Worlds_ Combine KG and Vector search for enhanced R...
Business Models and Open Source Licenses in 2019: Can we all get along?
1. Business Models and Open Source
Licenses in 2019: Can we all get along?
Stephen Walli, Principal Program Manager, Microsoft @stephenrwalli
Jeffrey Borek, WW Program Director, Open Tech, IBM @jeffborek
Stephen.Walli@microsoft.com jborek@us.ibm.com
2. Is there an Open Source Business Model?
You are either CONSUMING or PRODUCING
open source licensed projects
3. Is there an Open Source Business Model?
If you are CONSUMING project components then
Orders of Magnitude of Value Capture
It’s all about Engineering Economics
Software Process is needed to protect customer stability
Build vs Buy vs Borrow + Share
4. Is there an Open Source Business Model?
Congratulations … you’re Red Hat
5. Is there an Open Source Business Model?
If you are PRODUCING then the software is either
Core Value Proposition to Customers
Complement Value Add to Core Value Proposition
Context (Software Exhaust)
6. Is there an Open Source Business Model?
Congratulations … you’re a Software Business
8. Is there an Open Source Business Model?
Building a project community in context spaces:
• Validates the approach to a problem
• Demonstrates expertise that can be used in
recruitment
• Improves the quality of recruitment candidates
• Demonstrates committed values to collaboration
amongst developers that further recruitment goals
• Captures innovation from outside sources
9. Is there an Open Source Business Model?
Building a project community in complement
value-add spaces:
• Creates stickiness/inertia for the core value.
• Creates experts, advocates, and evangelists around the
technology
• Hardens the complements with new configurations and
contributions
• Captures direct value to the complements (indirectly to the
core)
• Is possibly disruptive to competitors
10. Is there an Open Source Business Model?
But – publishing your core value proposition under
an open source license:
• Makes potential partners into competitors
• Allows savvy IT consumers to avoid becoming
customers
• Creates confusion for the sales and marketing
team
13. Is there an Open Source Business Model?
If you invest in building community around the project that sits
on your core value proposition:
• You create tension when competitors and partners and advanced
IT users contribute value they want in your core value proposition.
• The power of innovation capture in community around a
complement becomes the problem of innovation dilution in your
core value proposition.
• You accelerate the creation of a community of early
adopting users that aren’t interested in paying for your software,
instead of creating early adopting customers that understood your
product solution sufficiently to give you money.
14. Is there an Open Source Business Model?
Projects are not Products
15. Is there an Open Source Business Model?
Projects are interesting buckets of technology
developed collaboratively by like-minded engineers
16. Is there an Open Source Business Model?
Projects are interesting buckets of technology
developed collaboratively by like-minded engineers
Products solve customer problems and money is
exchanged for perceived value
17. Is there an Open Source Business Model?
Projects have communities
Communities have time and no money
18. Is there an Open Source Business Model?
Projects have communities
Communities have time and no money
Products have customers
Customers have money and no time
19. Is there an Open Source Business Model?
Parking your identity brand on any open
source project you own, instead of the
product/solution your customers buy, creates
confusion for your messaging to customers
20. Is there an Open Source Business Model?
Open Source Software is about Engineering
Economics
21. Is there an Open Source Business Model?
Collaboratively-Developed Liberally-
Licensed Software is about Engineering
Economics
22. 1950 1960 1970 200019901980 2010
Code
sharing
At Princeton
IAS in late
1940s
IBM “SHARE”
Conf & Library
Begins 1953
DECUS
Conf & Library
Begins 1962
MIT Project
Athena Begins
1983
1BSD Released
1977
AT&T Shares
First UNIX
tapes early-
70s
Free Software
Foundation
Launches 1985
2nd DoJ vs IBM
begins
“Software Bundling
is Anti-competitive”
1969
IBM response is to
unbundle HW, SW,
& services pricing
1st DoJ vs IBM
Consent Decree
“Hardware Bundling
is Anti-competitive”
1956
Open Source
Definition 1998
USENIX Begins
1975
Linus Releases
Linux 1991
Apache httpd
Released 1995
Apache Software
Foundation 1999
OSDL Forms
2000
OSDL Re-forms as
Linux Foundation
2007
U.S. Congress
Adds Computer
Software to
Copyright Law
1980
GCC
1987
emacs
1975
Is there an Open Source Business Model?
We’ve collaborated on software since we’ve written software
Writing good software is hard work
23. Is there an Open Source Business Model?
Open Source Definition
After ~20 years of experimentation
Creates the broadest surface area for engineers collaborating
Served us well for 20 more years
24. Is there an Open Source Business Model?
How will you broaden the collaboration?
25. Is there an Open Source Business Model?
How will you broaden the collaboration?
Don’t tell me how we’re supposed to make your world better
Tell me how you want to make our world collectively better
26. Is there an Open Source Business Model?
Open Source Software is about developers collaborating
Go build great software businesses
27. Is there an Open Source Business Model?
Open Source Software is about developers collaborating
Go build great software businesses
There is NO Open Source Business Model…
28.
29. Is there an Open Source Business Model?
Alternatively…
There IS an open source business model
30. Is there an Open Source Business Model?
Collaboratively-Developed Liberally-Licensed
Software is about evolving Business Models
31. OS became “official” over 2 decades ago
The segment of collaboratively-developed liberally-licensed
software labeled “open source” is over 20 years old
https://opensource.org/node/924
32. Is that when “open source” actually began?
The segment of collaboratively-developed liberally-
licensed software labeled “open source” is 20 years old
When did the first release of a enterprise-grade “open
source” operating system get released, and by who?
https://opensource.org/node/924
33. Open software for business has been around longer
The segment of collaboratively-developed liberally-
licensed software labeled “open source” is 20 years old
When did the first release of a enterprise-grade “open
source” operating system get released, and by who?
SHARE released its own operating system – what we
would today refer to as an OS distribution, the SHARE
Operating System (SOS) – for IBM 709 hardware in 1959
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHARE_(computing)
https://opensource.org/node/924
34. How long has business made money with SW?
When did the revenue-generating Software
Industry come into existence?
35. Was it about four decades ago?
When did the revenue-generating Software
Industry come into existence?
Was it when Bill Gates wrote the famous “An
Open Letter to Hobbyists” email back in 1976?
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1994/01/10/e-mail-from-bill
36. Actually it was about five decades ago
When did the revenue-generating Software Industry
come into existence?
Was it when Bill Gates wrote the famous “An Open
Letter to Hobbyists” email back in 1976?
IBM announced that it would “unbundle” its software
and hardware, June 1969
http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2014/06/102712825/102712825-05-01-acc.pdf
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1994/01/10/e-mail-from-bill
37. OS business models have evolved over time…
Dual Licensing
Licensors can distribute software to licensees under a proprietary model as well
as an open source model
Advertising Partnerships
Development costs are offset by logo placement and/or advertising revenue
Support and Service
Offers software for free and charges enterprise users for technical support
services, facilitates certifications
Open Core
Primarily involves offering a "core" or feature-limited version of a software
product as free and open-source software, while offering "commercial" versions
or add-ons as proprietary software
38. Open Source Business Model in the era of Cloud
Open source software delivered as a service
Instead of attempting to sell open source software as a standalone entity, it
is coupled with a platform and the two are sold together
Advantages:
Clear path to monetization – Its been difficult to get developers and end-users
to pay for software they can download for free. But when coupled with a platform, its
understood that it comes at a cost
Alignment of customer and vendor needs – By combining the benefit of both
code and platform, sufficient value is created to satisfy both byer and seller
Flexibility of operational choice – Developers can still download and run the
open source code should business needs require
39. The OS business model has never been easy!
Building a viable business around 'real' open source is as
dicey as it's ever been
https://www.infoworld.com/article/3032647/open-source-tools/face-it-theres-no-money-in-open-source.html
40. However Open Source is clearly winning
Building a viable business around 'real' open source is as
dicey as it's ever been
Open source is winning in the data center as the emerging
”standard” for most of the cloud infrastructure components
https://www.infoworld.com/article/3032647/open-source-tools/face-it-theres-no-money-in-open-source.html
41. Could Cloud kill the OS business model?
Building a viable business around 'real' open source is as
dicey as it's ever been
Open source is winning in the data center as the emerging
“standard” for most of the cloud infrastructure components
To what extent do big cloud providers owe a debt to open
source, and how can that debt be sustained?
https://www.infoworld.com/article/3032647/open-source-tools/face-it-theres-no-money-in-open-source.html
https://www.geekwire.com/2018/might-time-big-cloud-share-wealth-open-source-startups/
42. “Recent OS license innovations” react to Cloud
Startups look to evolve open source software licenses to
improve their chances in the marketplace
Balancing the availability of code that characterizes open source with the need to monetize the
software to continue its development
“Fair Source License”– Allows everyone to see the source code and makes the software free to
use for a limited number of users in your organization. (March 2016)
“Business Source License" – Usage above a specified level requires a vendor license until the
Change Date, at which point all usage becomes free. (August 2016)
“Community License” – Customers are asked to follow an “honor system.” In registering to use
the software, they are agreeing to abide by the CCL. (January 2017)
“Commons Clause” – Applies a narrow, minimal-form commercial restriction on top of an existing
open source license to transition the project to a source-availability licensing scheme. (May 2018)
“Server Side Public License” – Mongo DB creates new license that builds on the spirit of the
AGPL, but makes explicit the conditions for providing the software as a service. (October 2018)
43. Microsoft surprises industry, acquires open source repository
” Microsoft Buys GitHub for $7.5 Billion, Moving to Grow in Coding’s
New Era”
• https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/04/technology/microsoft-github-cloud-
computing.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Ftechnology&action=click&conten
tCollection=technology®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlac
ement=2&pgtype=sectionfront
“Everyone complaining about Microsoft buying GitHub needs to offer a
better solution”
• https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/06/everyone-complaining-about-microsoft-
buying-github-needs-to-offer-a-better-solution/
“So Pigs Do Fly: Microsoft Acquires GitHub”
• https://redmonk.com/sogrady/2018/06/04/so-pigs-do-fly-microsoft-acquires-github/
Key Issues:
• Over 28M developers use the service to collaborate on more than
85M projects.
• Many enterprise companies (49% of the Fortune 100) maintain
and collaborate on projects on GH. Massive developer dataset.
• Microsoft pledges to maintain GitHub as developer and vendor
neutral.
44. IBM surprises industry, acquires open source company
” IBM to Buy Red Hat, the Top Linux Distributor, for $34 Billion”
• https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/28/business/ibm-red-hat-cloud-computing.html
“IBM to buy Red Hat for $34B in cash and debt, taking a bigger leap into
hybrid cloud”
• https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/28/ibm-to-buy-red-hat-for-34b-in-cash-and-debt-taking-
a-bigger-leap-into-hybrid-
cloud/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer_us=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guc
e_referrer_cs=K-3QnmcIV7F3qlI2hPgOUQ
“Big Blue Puts on a Red Hat: IBM Acquires Red Hat”
• https://redmonk.com/sogrady/2018/10/30/ibm-red-hat/
Key Issues:
• Over 78% of enterprises use open source, 65% of companies are
starting to contribute to open source projects.
• Many enterprise companies (90% of the Fortune 500) use Red
Hat products. Massive mindshare with open source developers.
• IBM pledges to maintain Red Hat as independent and vendor
neutral.
45. Is there an Open Source Business Model?
Open Source Definition
After ~20 years of experimentation
Creates the broadest surface area for engineers collaborating
Served us well for 20 more years
How will you broaden the collaboration?
Don’t tell me how we’re supposed to make your world better
Tell me how you want to make our world collectively better
However, open source software was created well before Cloud was conceived
How might the OSD be different had they been able to foresee that massive compute
consolidation could lead to a future where a small handful of platforms would be able to
disproportionately benefit from open source software?
46. Is there an Open Source Business Model?
So YES,
there are open source business models
They just keep changing constantly!
47. Is there an Open Source Business Model?
YES or NO?
Q & A