Open Source business models

Open Source business models

Open source business models are commercial business models based on open source software. This webpage contains a short version of a chapter in the book Advances in software business.

Commercial use of open source

For a commercial company, Open Source Software is software that is licensed to that company under an open source license. The commercial company may make use of the open source, like usage or redistribution of the open source free of charge, but it also has to fulfill the obligations, like delivering a copy of the license text with the software.
So the rights and obligations have to be analyzed diligently to make sure there is no violation of the license terms.

Suppliers of open source software

Open Source software can be supplied by a community or by a commercial company. We speak of community open source and commercial open source respectively. For community open source, a community of people provides creation, maintenance and support for an open source software. In most of the cases the community provides these services free of charge.

There are, of course, differences between a company and the open source community. These differences are important to understand, because they influence a customer´s supplier decision and they also create niches for companies to establish a business in that niche.

Commercial open source vs. community open source

So a customer might decide for commercial open source if he needs customized license terms, runs open source in a mission-critical environment and thus needs service level agreements in support or if he needs maintenance provided in a different way than via the open source community.

In many business contexts it makes also sense to have liability and warranty provisions from a supplier when using open source. In most of the existing open source licenses there is exclusion of any warranty or liability (3). This is another reason why companies might choose commercial open source over community open source. Please find more information in the book “Best practices for commercial use of open source software”.

Classification of open source business models

Based on a classification of business models (Weill et al.) we will have a look at open source business models.

Open source usually is free of charge, but that does not necessarily mean there is no compensation for using the open source component.
The next figure shows a classification of generic business models. The business models relevant for commercial open source business are marked in bold. In this general classification of business models, software classifies as an intangible product, see the corresponding column “Intangible”. Software can be created or written (“Inventor”), distributed (“IP Distributor”) or licensed or rented to customers (“IP Lessor”). In addition, the customer needs services to run and maintain the software, like implementation, support and maintenance services. These classify as “Contractor” business. We assume here that all open source businesses make use of at least a subset of these four business models.

No matter if it is a community or a commercial software vendor, one or many of these business models are applied. By choosing a specific selection of business models, so-called hybrid business models are created. Creating hybrid business models means combining different business models with their specific goals, requirements and cost structures.

Since these business models are models on a type level, there might be different implementations of how a certain business models are run. An open source community might run the Inventor business for creating software in a different way (leveraging the community) than a commercial software vendor (leveraging a development team), from a process as well as from a resource perspective. But on a type level, both run the same type of business called Inventor.

So going forward, we will analyze commercial and community open source business models as a selection of a subset of the business models identified here: Inventor, IP Lessor, IP distributor and Contractor.

Community open source business model

The open source community business model usually makes use of the following business models: Inventor, IP Lessor and Contractor.

For the community, the Inventor business is what the community is most involved in. It is about creating open source software and engaging with the community members to coordinate the work and collect the contributions of the community members.

The IP Lessor business is also important for the community. The IP lessor business defines the terms and conditions of the open source license and makes the software available to customers. The license is defined by the community and all customers using the software have to comply with it. In some cases, there are multiple different licenses for an open source software that a customer can choose from.

The Contractor business contains all human services to customers. The community typically provides these via email and they contain services like maintenance, support, translation for country specific versions and the like. They are all carried out by community members. In almost every case, the customer does not pay for these services, but the customer has no rights to enforce any of these services and he does not have service level agreements, like a definition of minimum answer time for support incidents.
The community can serve two types of customers: software vendors and (end) customers. For software vendors, the open source community works as a supplier of software, for the customer, the open source community works as a software vendor licensing software to the customer.
These two relationships differ in the way that customers and software vendors might make use of the software. Customers usually license the software for internal use only. Software vendors license software for internal use and/or for distribution to customers. Often open source software is included in commercial software and provided to customers by the software vendor. In this case, the software vendor has to make sure he complies with all licenses of all open source software he is including in his software product. Please find more information in the book “Best practices for commercial use of open source software”.

Commercial open source business models overview

In the last section we described the community business model, now we turn to the commercial open source business model. Figure 4 shows the typical business models implemented by commercial software vendors. As mentioned before, a commercial software vendor does not have to implement all of these business models, but can rather build unique business models by selecting a subset of available business models. One basic difference to community open source is that the IP Distributor business model is an option for commercial companies.
The history of commercial open source companies shows that in the beginning the companies focused on services around open source software, which matches the Contractor business.

The next step was to build distributions for open source software, like e.g. for Linux. This matches to the IP Distributor business model.

Today, we find all kinds of hybrid business models around open source. Companies are building software and donate it, completely or partially to the open source community (Inventor business model). Commercial software vendors often package or change or extend existing community open source software, so the community acts as a supplier of open source software to the software vendor. In some cases the software vendor does not use existing open source software from a community, but chooses to offer its proprietary software under a dual licensing strategy, e.g. under a commercial and an open source license. Please find more information in the book “Best practices for commercial use of open source software”.

Commercial services for open source

Since open source licenses are free of charge, commercial companies first and foremost focused on providing services around open source software. The expectation was simply that customers would still need services and since the license was free, that customers would have more money to spend on services.

Commercial open source companies provide the following services for open source software: Maintenance, Support, Consulting and Extension or adaption of open source software to a customer´s needs.

Maintenance services consist of the following activities: building future versions, bug fixes and upgrades and providing them to the customers.

Support services contain of accepting, maintaining and resolving incidents that the customer has while using the software.

Consulting services mean planning and executing the installation and go-live of customers´ system landscapes containing the software.

Extension or adaption of open source software based on customer´s requests is designing, programming, testing and delivering open source software that has been modified or expanded. Examples for extensions and modifications are:

• Functional Extensions for open source applications with country-specific functionality or customer specific functionality;

• Extending the usage scenarios for open source to additional countries by adding additional translations of user interfaces;

• Adapting open source software means to make open source software run on customers´ hardware and software platforms.

Summary and outlook

The evolution of open source and commercial open source business is still underway. In the future we will see additional varieties of open source business licenses, such as in open source hardware or designs, and new open source business models, like in open source on demand applications or open source software in cloud environments. Please find more information in the book “Best practices for commercial use of open source software”.

A recap of the European workshop on software ecosystems 2018

The workshop was held within two sessions of the second day of the First European Platform Economy Summit in Berlin. The first session was a workshop called “New Ecosystem Opportunities & 'White space' Opportunities in Software and High-Tech“ and the second session was a panel about “Network Effects, Data Effects & AI - Keys to the castle“ moderated by Slinger Jansen. You can find more details on both sessions below.
What made this workshop successful were the discussions about the presentations but also the interactions in breaks and during lunch. A big thank you goes out to all presenters, helpers and participants!

Session one: New Ecosystem Opportunities & 'White space' Opportunities in Software and High-Tech

This design-thinking based workshop featured three short motivating presentations by Peter Buxmann, Sebastien Dupre and Thomas Curran followed by topic-based, hands-on workshops.

Thomas captured the audience by describing his recent success with creating new cloud based ecosystems for digital business in the financial industry. In a traditionally closed industry, what do you do to turn a company into a digital, open platform? Thomas had done just that in a three year project and talked about how to do that successfully.

Peter reported about several studies on the value of data and the importance of privacy. He provided insights into challenges and success factors for software platform providers regarding the value of customer data, customer privacy and tradeoffs between data privacy and data farming by platform providers.

Sebastien showed how Uberization in field service management works by engaging a crowd of service technicians inside and outside of companies. He explained how companies can build an ecosystem connecting field service technicians, partners, own employees and customers to scale their field service operations, increase revenue and provide unmatched customer experience.

Then we split the crowd of thirty people into three teams that worked together and discussed with the help of the moderators and our design thinking coach Olaf Mackert. First, we ran an introduction game called two truths and one lie, which created a lot of laughter and made everybody ready to work together trustfully.

Then everybody dumped his ideas, questions, issues he or she wanted to discuss on post-its, which were clustered into topics by the moderator. Then the teams voted on the topic to start with. The discussions went on in five minute slots. The team voted on either continuing the discussions on the topic or going to the next topic after each slot.

Thomas Curran´s team, which was the largest team, focused on the technical aspects of creating a platform and technology selection. They had lively and productive discussions leveraging the joint wisdom of the team.

Sebastien´s team of ten discussed topics around uberization of any industry and about changes in strategies for field service management.

Peter Buxmann´s team was a diverse team made up of members from venture capital, manufacturing, public administration which made discussions very interesting based on the different views. The team addressed question around motivations of people to share data, ways to create value from data and also around data protection impact on data-driven business models.

The results of each team will be provided in a short writeup from the moderator.

Session TWO: Network Effects, Data Effects & AI - Keys to the castle

John Rethans, head of Digital Transformation Strategy from Apigee/Google, brought everybody on the same page regarding APIs - what they are and what it means to implement an API driven strategy and technology.

Slinger Jansen from Utrecht University opened the panel with a short presentation about his research. The panel´s focus was on pragmatic aspects of creating successful API platforms. It covered questions like “What is the role of APIs for platforms? How do you build API-based platforms?  What are the success factors and pitfalls when building API-based platforms? How to explain their power to non-technical executives and shareholders?”

In addition to Slinger and John, the panel featured the following speakers:

Nik Willetts - President & CEO, TM Forum

Andreas von Oettingen - MD of Factor10

Program of the workshop as part of the Platform Economy Summit

The European Workshop on software ecosystems will be held as part of the Platform Economy Summit in Berlin, we will have two sessions on the second day of the European Platform Economy summit.

The first session is called “Challenges and success factors for creating digital platforms: Insights from studies, real life projects and Uberization“ and will feature three short motivating presentations by Peter Buxmann, Thomas Curran and Sebastien Dupre followed by topic-bases workshops.

Peter Buxmann, Head of Software & Digital Business Group at Technical University of Darmstadt, will present the topic “Data Economy, Platforms, and Privacy: Insights from multiple empirical studies“. He will provide insights into challenges and success factors for software platform providers regarding the value of customer data, customer privacy and tradeoffs between data privacy and data farming by platform providers.

Thomas Curran will present the transformation of a financial industry heavyweight to becoming an open, digital platform. In a traditionally closed industry, what do you do to turn a company into a digital, open platform. Thomas has done just that in a three year project and will talk about how to do that successfully.

Sebastien Dupre from Coresystems (now SAP) will present the topic “Uberization of field service: a software platform for crowdsourcing service technicians and show how companies can build an ecosystem connecting field service technicians, partners, own employees and customers to scale their field service operations, increase revenue and provide unmatched customer experience.

The second session in the afternoon is called “Network Effects & APIs: Their role in driving platform value “ and will be moderated by Slinger Jansen - Software Ecosystems Research Lab, Utrecht University. It will focus on questions like “What is the role of APIs for platforms? How do you build API-based platforms?  What are the success factors and pitfalls when building API-based platforms? How to explain their power to non-technical executives and shareholders?”

The session will start with a short introduction about APIs in general by John Nethans from Google. Then Sligner will present the essence of latest research on API approaches. After that, the panel will focus on pragmatic aspects of creating successful API platforms.

This session will feature the following speakers:

Slinger Jansen - Software Ecosystems Research Lab, Utrecht University

John Rethans - Head of Digital Transformation Strategy, Apigee, Google

Nik Willetts - President & CEO, TM Forum

This session will start with short statements from the panel and will transition to a discussion with questions from the audience.

hope to see you there. please make use of discounted tickets as of below.

Dr. Karl Popp

Join now and you get a special 15% discount off the booking fee. Just quote the discount VIP Code: FKN2652EWOSEL to claim your discount.
 
For more information or to register for the Platform Economy Summit Europe, please contact the KNect365 team on: Tel: +44 (0) 20 3377 3279 | Email: gf-registrations@knect365.com | Register here.
 
Remember to quote the VIP code: FKN2652EWOSEL to claim your 15% discount.

Academic pricing for the 2018 workshop available

We could secure a massive discount for researchers for the Platform Economy Summit.

Researchers get 50 percent off the normal price, which makes 1130 € if you book before Oct 19.

I know this is a lot of money for researchers, but it is a unique opportunity to socialize with many companies.

To register, please send an email to Callum.McGuire@informa.com with a proof of your affiliation like a link to your profile on the university website. 

Managing the Dark Side of Software Ecosystems

The emergence of platforms is significantly changing the organizing logic of software

development. Platform owners are increasingly engaging vibrant ecosystems around

their platform to foster third-party innovation. Despite all the potential benefits for

complementors, however, innovation in platform ecosystems also introduced essential

new risks that remain under investigated.

Find more information here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3245777

Talk about it and discuss at Platform Economy Summit https://goo.gl/GAJmg1

Update on location

The 7th European workshop on software ecosystems will be part of the European platform economy summit in Berlin! Stay tuned as details on this exclusive event unfold.

Location for the European workshop on software ecosystems 2018

Dear all,

we have exciting news, the location for the workshop will be Wiesbaden, Germany in one of the leading hotels of the world: Nassauer Hof!

Stay tuned for more exciting details

Software AG sponsors an industry keynote at EWSECO 2017

Software AG sponsors an industry keynote at the European workshop on software ecosystems 2017 in Darmstadt.

Software AG will present a keynote at the workshop on the topic of " Survival of the smartest: Digitalization of mechanical engineering companies by creating a software ecosystem ".

Software AG (Frankfurt TecDAX: SOW) helps companies with their digital transformation. With Software AG’s Digital Business Platform, companies can better interact with their customers and bring them on new ‘digital’ journeys, promote unique value propositions, and create new business opportunities. In the Internet of Things (IoT) market, Software AG enables enterprises to integrate, connect and manage IoT components as well as analyze data and predict future events based on Artificial Intelligence (AI). The Digital Business Platform is built on decades of uncompromising software development, IT experience and technological leadership. Software AG has more than 4,500 employees, is active in 70 countries and had revenues of €872 million in 2016.

Seeburger sponsors an industry keynote at EWSECO 2017

Seeburger AG, an all-in-one Central Platform for all Integration Tasks, sponsors a keynote at EWSECO 2017.

The keynote will be about the European Standard on eInvoicing EN16931. Starting in November 2018, all contracting public authorities and contracting entities in the European Union will be mandated to receive and process electronic invoices complying with the European standard. The benefits for the public and private sector and the wider economy of adopting eInvoicing are reduced risks, reduced costs and improved market.

Seeburger has more than 10,000 satisfied customers worldwide trust in SEEBURGER solutions.

Corum Group sponsors an industry keynote at EWSECO 2017

Corum M&A, a long time sponsor of the European workshop on software ecosystems will hold a keynote presentation at the workshop about the ecosystems in mergers and acquisitions of software companies.

Corum Group is the world leader in software mergers and acquisitions and will present an overview of hot topics and recent deals in the software ecosystem.