10th
How to Successfully Compete With Proprietary Software
How To Successfully Compete With Open Source Software describes the supposed advatages that proprietary software developers have in the marketplace for consumer applications. These include marketing, graphic design, user interface, and all of the other “high touch” customer relationships that require the employment of specialists, sales people, and support staff. The money to employ those people must come from somwhere, right?
But here’s the thing that I learned a decade ago: open source software is not the same as free software. You can sell licenses to use an open source product the same way you sell licenses to use a proprietary product. The difference is that the open source version is automatically superior in a number of ways, because the source adds value.
When you make money by selling your open source software, then you have the cash to pay graphic designers and marketing wonks and front-line support staff. And then it becomes dead easy to compete with proprietary packages, because you can offer extra bullets at the end of your feature list: portability, transparent security, and future-proof development.
