Why does open source make a better business model?

Matt Asay posted about an interview with JBoss middleware division GM Craig Muzilla, praising Craig for understanding why open source is not only a great software strategy but also a revolutionary business strategy. One of the comments to the article caught my attention:

“JBoss’ success has about 5% to do with the fact that it is open source, and 90% that it is good software, approximately.”

Thanks to the poster for his praise of JBoss software, but his comments exemplify a misunderstanding across various open communities. We can all agree that making a software project open source does not magically make the binaries better. The open source methodology combined with an open source license do get the advantage of several effects, which are key to the success of JBoss and other similar projects.

When you run a project in an open manner with an open source license, you make it possible for other smart and highly capable developers to adopt your project as their own. They become contributors. You can judge their quality as developers by collaborating with them at low to zero cost to your project. As a company, it’s a way to attract and discover the best developers. Then you can hire them. That is exactly what JBoss did all along. At a very low cost to JBoss, they were able to get hundreds of talented Java developers to prove their mettle before they were paid a dime. It’s like a giant, 24×7 recruiting show combined with a hackfest.

Just as being open source doesn’t make code magically better, there is no requirement for software to have a large, distributed, open team to make it really good software. But there is evidence that if that project wants to grow any larger, it has to pay more people and suffer a drop-off in quality as the project size grows. Look at any bloated closed source software company for examples. The growth effect is different in open source. For example, your paid developers can focus on the core issues key to your business, while the open source community hangs out in the garden, weeding and planting and otherwise adding value. Every garden needs compost to grow. In larger projects, their are paid developers working on parts that have far less meaning to the other paid developer contributors, and often it is a non-paid contributor who creates the new idea that is suddenly important to everyone.

Over time, the exposure of the code base to developers and other willing enthusiasts makes the software better than non-open source. That timeframe is not that long, either; open projects have sky-rocketed within twelve months. Many new development platforms, such as Ruby on Rails, have grown quickly to being good software because of the open community around it. The developers don’t have to give a wit about freedom and they still get the benefit.

JBoss has obviously not hit the ceiling on what it could do as a smaller, agile shop. But to get the growth into the enterprise that Red Hat enjoys, JBoss.org must become an even more important part of the JBoss story. This means growing the contributor pool who are not paid by JBoss/Red Hat. I don’t think the core JBoss developers have any doubt as to the added value there, regardless of where they prioritize freedom in their list of features.

This entry was posted by Karsten Wade on Saturday, March 15th, 2008 at 12:39 pm and is filed under JBoss, Open Source. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.