Pay for Open Source for Multiple Reasons
February 22, 2013
Open source software is free to use, so many would wonder why it would make sense to pay for this usually free technology. CIO answers this very question in their article, “6 Reasons to Pay for Open Source Software.”
The article begins with an example of the industry’s most notable open source offering, Red Hat:
“Red Hat’s engineers contribute to the OpenStack project, and the company is an old-hand at productizing open source projects and offering them on a subscription basis. It is probably best known for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), a productized version of the open source Fedora Linux operating system, as well its JBoss Enterprise Middleware, based on JBoss community projects. Companies such as Red Hat make a lot of money selling products based on open source projects. But if the underlying software is free, what exactly are you paying for when you subscribe to these products?”
And that is a good question, what are you paying for when subscribing to seemingly free software? The article goes on to list several things, including: enterprise-grade support, input into future development, stable software, extra functionality, integrated hardware and software, and low cost platforms for proprietary products. These LucidWorks is a good example of a value-added solution built on open source software. It offers all of the above benefits, but is most notable for its excellent training and support.
Emily Rae Aldridge, February 22, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
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