The Open Source Advocate

Introduction If you have followed this blog for a while, you will know about my passion for open source software. I have always predicted that open source software would revolutionize the software industry, but I didn't quite understand how this would happen. My initial views expected that open source would disrupt traditional software companies so much that it would eventually put them out of business. I am now realizing that the future of open source software looks much different than I first expected. Proprietary software will be quietly built on open source software One of the primary benefits of open source software is that it reduces the cost to produce software. Gartner agrees with this point; open source software is the most efficient method to create software. Traditional proprietary software vendors are realizing this fact , and are beginning to quietly build their closed software products using lots of open source software. I say "quietly" because these...

I have noticed a trend developing in the business models of successful open source companies. These companies are implementing a business model that is based on dual licensing their software. This press release provides an excellent summary of what dual licensing means. The guiding principle behind dual licensing is "quid pro quo," or a fair exchange. Under this model, vendors offer their products under both an open source license and a commercial license. This allows open source projects to use the software at no cost, which contributes to widespread use and testing of the software and the fast growth of a large installed user base. Companies redistributing the software as part of commercial products can also get the benefits of the open source software by purchasing a commercial license, which releases them from requirements to publish their source code. Commercially-licensed customers generate revenue for the open source vendors, which contributes to the rapid developmen...

Background Digium is the company behind Asterisk , the popular open source PBX . Digium was founded in 1999 by Mark Spencer , the creator of Asterisk. Since then, Asterisk has been deployed around the world on millions on computers. Despite that fact, Asterisk still does not have a large market share of the PBX market. Why is this? In the past, there were many reasons for this: No brand recognition of Asterisk No proven track record of successful implementations Commercial support was needed No Linux expertise on staff Afraid to use open source software These concerns were once valid, but today most of them have been addressed by Digium. They made Asterisk easy to use Digium has been working hard to overcome the historically steep learning curve associated with implementing Asterisk. They have accomplished this with two major improvements. First, Digium created an open source software appliance called AsteriskNow! that bundled Asterisk inside a pre-configured version of Linux. ...