The Single-Vendor Commercial Open Source Business Model

Single-Vendor Open Source Firms (and Their Intellectual Property Strategies)

Dirk Riehle, dirk@riehle.org An edited version was published in Computer magazine, April 2020 Abstract This article present a particular business model for commercial open source firms, called the …

The Open Source Distributor Business Model

Dirk Riehle, dirk@riehle.org, Published in Computer vol. 54, no. 12 (December 2021), pp. 99-103. Abstract This article defines and discusses one particular commercial open source business model, ca…

Please Help Keep our Language Precise: Single-Vendor Open Source is Neo-Proprietary Source, not Closed Source

When the Open Source Initiative defined open source, it focused only on the license, and ignored the process. Smart entrepreneurs quickly discovered that they could provide to the world their produ…

The intellectual property rights imperative of single-vendor open source

I guess everybody knows it but nobody ever named it, as far as I know, so I’m doing it here: The Intellectual Property Rights Imperative of Single-Vendor Commercial Open Source Always act in …

There is Still NO Open Source Business Model

I wrote a blog post two years ago called There is NO Open Source Business Model. In it, I argued that open source software is really about…

There is NO Open Source Business Model

Preface: It has been brought to my attention by friends and trusted advisors that a valid interpretation of my point below is that open…

Revisiting the Open Source Business Model

In the past few years, many companies have come to me asking for help drafting a “new open source license.”  As a rule, drafting a new open source software license is not a good idea, s…

Is open source a development model, business model, or something else?

The term "open source" was coined in 1998 at a strategy session held by Open Source Initiative (OSI).

Why Now? And Who? The Struggle Over Single-Vendor / Open-Core Licensing

Update 2023-08-26: Redis writes to us that they rebranded from Redis Labs, to Redis. In yesterday’s talk I reviewed the current licensing struggle of single-vendor open source firms. Single-v…

Open source and the software supply chain

Managing something as esoteric as resources for building software with a variety of contributions made by the open source community is more amorphic.

Free-to-Use, Unless You Are a Cloud Provider (The New Strategy?)

On the heels of my talk about the current licensing challenges to single-vendor open source firms, I want to discuss the resulting strategy for vendors selling to developers. Single-vendor open sou…

The Secrets of Successful Open Source Business Models

Finding the right model for your open-source startup

Open source is a restaurant

[[Chad Whitacre]] makes a great analogy around when/how software gets paid for, vs food. Open Source is a restaurant. At a restaurant, you eat your meal fir...

How to build a successful business model around open source software

The right approach to open source can be a great revenue model for the software provider — my company did it and we've been profitable since day one.

Why Open Source Is Good For Business

You may have heard of the term open source but what does it actually mean and how can it help us as consumers? Open source is a type of…

Some argue that dual-licensing in commercial open source indicates a lack of ability to provide superior service

This is obviously wrong. The use of dual licensing and the ability to provide superior service for open source are unrelated forms of competitive advantage, and without further circumstances, a bus…