If you can't beat them,join them You'd better do it because it makes you feel good If you can't beat them,join them You're never gonna help yourself

-Artist: Queen (Freddy Mercury), Song: If You Can't Beat Them, Album: Jazz

Most software costs money. It costs money to make it, test it, package it, market it, store it, distribute it, display it, bill it and sell it. But Open Source Solutions appears to cost nothing. Someone has to pay the people who make it, test it and all of those other  ‘ its ' . Right? Wrong!

People who design, write, test and package OSS software do it for a passion. Not for money. They typically have other jobs that pay them. Of late, many organizations are encouraging its employees to contribute to OSS projects. Why? What is in it for the organization to pay someone to do business outside the organization? Many things, apparently. That's fodder for another article, but one interesting thing that must be said here is that it teaches a person to be a remote team player. In today's shrinking world, it is of paramount importance to establish relationship with people you do not meet. Not social, but professional relationships.

Coming back to the topic at hand, so how do these organizations that have devoted their time to OSS software make money for operations? Do they make a profit at all? Yes, and a resounding YES. The whole commercial world around the OSS solutions (It uses OSS Solutions and OSS Software interchangeably) revolves around services. You do get free support with most OSS software. But it does not come with a specific Service Level Agreement (SLA). In fact, there is no SLA when it comes to OSS software.

Many users are not happy with that. They want someone to help them understand and use the application effectively. Sometimes, they need some trouble shooting help. Again, there is free help from fellow users and the creators, but they are not time bound. For those that want assistance on their terms, paid services are available from the creators and other organizations.

Now don't confuse this with shareware, donationware or the other "wares" that are flooding the market. Remember that even though a software might be Free (like Skype or Google), they are closed source. You do not get the source code for such software. Bottomline Freeware is not equal to Free software. The businessess that give you freeware are just dangling the "free" carrot in front of you. You might be asked to pay for those same services later, maybe never, but the chance is always there. Take Grisoft for example. They were giving away their Anti Virus for free. Recently though, they are not free anymore. One has to pay, not a small sum either, to continue using it. This is one of the things that will never happen to an OSS solution. Guess why? You can change the code that asks you for money, for starters.

So, pardon me for digressing so very often, service providers who serve the customers of OSS software are often passionate about the solutions and services they provide. They know the industry well, they understand closed source software practices, and yet choose to work with OSS solutions for those very reasons. They will know the OSS solutions well enough to provide you with reasonably good services, in most cases, without tying you in to them or the solution. Often times you can hear them say that they would like to educate the customer. We all know what happens if you teach a man to fish instead of giving him a fish. Using closed source software is akin to buying a fish at a store, while using OSS solutions is like buying a fishing tackle and learning to fish.

And then there is training. Who wouldn't want some training for them/their users in understanding a new piece of software? And who better than the ones who were involved in creating the said software. Some years ago, I was involved in a particularly large project at PMI called OPM3 (Organizational Project Management Maturity Model, trust me OPM3 is better than this) whose senior members started OPM3 consulting organizations even before the project was completed. And boy, are they raking in the moolah...

Yes, everyone is in it for the money. But not to build a mansion for every client served. In fact, many will be happy to go over the finer details over a cup of coffee if you are nice. So the money is not in the wares but in services as it should rightfully be. After all, commercial software loaded on a Rs 10 CD costs us at least 1000 times that. And you have no clue how to use it in most cases. Is it really worth it?

And finally, could not resist this, guess who has joined the Open Source bandwagon? Microsoft, just look up http://www,microsoft.com/opensource . Now that ties in to the Queen lyrics, doesn't it?

Next time: Some Popular Open Source applications and tools. 

Venkat Mangudi is an Open Source Evangelist and Strategy Consultant based in Bangalore. After having worked across Europe, Asia and the US, Venkat returned home to set up a consulting firm called quite unimaginatively, Venkat Mangudi Consulting  www.venkatmangudi.com). He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it \n This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it "

Issue BG84 Mar 08

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