RE: [TCLUG:17767] Open Source Article

[Daniel Taylor <dante@plethora.net>]

A great many of open-source based companies make their
money primarily from back end services.

These are consulting firms, consultants, and software producers.

The rest make their money from front end services ("product").

This category covers distribution sales and system sales.

There are quite a few people eating well in both groups.


Part of the point is you can't point to a "Bill Gates" in the free
software community and say, "There is the man who owns it all and
is making tons of money from it".  There is a large amount of money 
spread more evenly across a large group of people.  Few get filthy rich,
but who wants people commenting about your smell anyway? ;)

Daniel Taylor                Embedded and custom Linux integration.
dante@plethora.net           (612)747-1609

On Wed, 17 May 2000 Nick.T.Reinking@supervalu.com wrote:

> How many open source companies do you know that
> are making money (a profit, particularly) selling services?
> 
> Now, considering that Linux was the OS on about 25% of
> servers sold last year, then there should be plenty of companies
> just rolling around in the money from "service" and "support"
> sales.  Who are these people again?
> 
> Nick Reinking
> 
>