Comment on Comparing open source and proprietary software markets by James

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Part of the reason that companies like open source solutions is that they want relief from vendor lock-in that they experienced in the past. So I think most markets will support a ‘SUSE’, to keep the options open. So I think Red Had is a great example. There may be a dominant Linux offering, but there are lots of others to choose from. There may be a dominant open source database, but there are lots of others to choose from.

In a mixed market the free market economy will drive single-vendor commercial open source companies to stick to the subscription model to maintain their growth in market share.

In a heavily dominant scenario, where there are no proprietary vendors left, and no other viable open source offerings to choose from the community edition will be the main competition. Commercial open source vendors have a < 1% conversion rate. Charging an up-front license fee will drive that ratio lower and possible result in a hostile fork.

James



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