为什么做开源软件的越来越有钱？
时间：2008-03-26 来源：linux论坛
来源：连线杂志
去年春天的时候，著名市场评论人员和博客作家Hugh MacLeod在其博客上发表一篇文章，主题是：假如开源只是一个现象，那怎么冒出这么多亿万富翁呢？他的博客读者们并没有被他的文章所逗乐，很快他的博客上充满了各种漫骂和叱责，这些读者认为，开源软件是一个依赖社区运作的社会软件开发模式，需要志愿者来维护、修补和开发的，并且把它们的作品免费发布。他们认为Hugh MacLeod为开源运动中的富人排名严重亵渎了开源运动的精神。有的读者回复到：“这些开源软件的开发人员是应该得到回报，但是没你说的那么商业化”，另外一个读者评论中直接上了脏字：“shut the F**k up,你懂啥啊，净瞎说！”
但并不是所有的开源软件开发人员都是憎恶铜钱味的。已经有相当数量的开源软件公司获得了风险投资公司的亲睐，有的直接被收购。不管开源软件运动的爱好者喜不喜欢，事实摆在面前的是--越来越多的开源软件创始人已经从这个事业中获得财富。
来自咨询公司451 group的资料显示，2007年，有超过30家的开源软件公司被收购，总金额高达10亿美金，是2005年整个开源软件产业的销售额的两倍。2008年更是来的疯狂，1月份，sun公司宣布收购开源数据库厂商MySQL，单比收购的金额就高达10亿美金；开源软件企业Covalent和SpringSource宣布合并；Nokia斥资1.5亿美金收购开源移动设备软件开发商Trolltech。在华尔街，更是有许多银行家们为众多的开源企业IPO在准备着。
Mozilla公司CEOJohn Lilly表示，也有很多人问他们关于上市的事情，他说他正在考虑。目前该公司的产品是全球用户量最大的开源浏览器Firefox和桌面邮件管理软件Thunderbird。华尔街资深分析人士Henry Blodgett估计，目前的mozilla 公司价值在15亿到40亿美金之间。作为CEO，Lilly有他独到的硅谷内部人士的眼光，他认为这个价格并没有夸大，但是目前的Mozilla还是私有，因为从目前看来，Mozilla要想发展的更好，在股东和财报的压力下是没有办法做到的。
这并不是说开源软件公司在商业浪潮中不能把持住自己，他已经越来越渗透入过去想都没有想过的领域，目前开源软件已经用在许多重要的场合，过去这都是专有软件的领地。比如沃尔玛在开源系统架构上部署了他们的员工安全信息跟踪系统，费用省了一大笔。一位来自Benchmark Capital投资公司的投资人Kevin Harvey说到，“我认为基于软件授权的商业模式已经过时了，我们不会投资这种类型的公司，我想起他投资公司也不会这么做的”。他说的也许有道理，因为Kevin Harvey刚刚从投资MySQL和Zimbra中获得丰厚的回报，前者被Sun斥资10亿美金收购，后者07年的时候被Yahoo斥资3.5亿美金收购。
我们如何打造自己的全新软件商业模式呢？一般的做法无碍乎是买附加值、售后服务，或者随硬件产品OEM软件等等，而这一切都是需要基础的。现在的开源软件采用全新的模式，先是聚集许多用户，然后只要一小部分用户给钱，这收入就非常可观了。比如Mozilla，Google在其内置搜索引擎，Google掏钱也非常乐意，因为FireFox有非常多的用户。
开源软件的发展都是依照社区开发人员的意志来完成的，因为这些人对产品的影响非常大，产品的开发和维护还得依靠他们。所以这些新生的亿万富翁们得要好好想想如何笼络这些开发人员，作为社区开发人员，假如他们被奖励，他们工作的热情会更高。
Open Source Software Made Developers Cool. Now It Can Make Them Rich
By Daniel Roth Email 03.24.08 | 6:00 PM
Last spring, marketer and blogger Hugh MacLeod posted a question on his site: If open source is such a phenomenon, where are all the open source billionaires? His audience wasn't amused. Open source software relies on a community of volunteer developers who tinker on, write for, or amend a program, then give it away free. MacLeod's site filled up with complaints that even to look for billionaires violated the spirit of the open source movement. "There have to be rewards," one commenter wrote, "but they don't have to be financial." Another simply recommended that MacLeod "shut the fuck up," adding: "You don't know what you're talking about."
But not every open-sourcer has proven so averse to filthy lucre. A number of open source companies have recently attracted investments and merger interest: Whether they like it or not — and let's face it, they probably do — more and more open source creators are striking it rich.
In 2007, some 30 open source software companies were purchased for more than $1 billion — double the number of sales in 2005, according to consulting firm 451 Group. And 2008 is proving to be even more frenetic. In January alone, Sun Microsystems announced the purchase of open source pioneer MySQL for $1 billion; open source development players Covalent and SpringSource merged; and Nokia agreed to pay $153 million for the open source mobile-software maker Trolltech. On Wall Street, bankers are rooting around for a good open source company to take public. "People call us all the time," says John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla, which oversees the open source Firefox browser and Thunderbird mail application. "We're a valuable thing." On his Silicon Alley Insider site, defrocked Wall Street analyst Henry Blodgett recently estimated that the for-profit arm of Mozilla was worth between $1.5 billion and $4 billion. Lilly says the estimate is about right but that Mozilla is staying private. "As long as we can pay the bills, we can take a long view of the world that we couldn't if we had shareholders and quarterly reporting."
Which is not to say that open source companies can't hold their own in the business world. The software is penetrating realms that few thought it ever would. It's being used to create trading platforms for hedge funds — which are notoriously insistent on proprietary systems — and Wal-Mart is deploying an open source-based system for its workers to track their health care records. The cost savings come from not having to hire engineers to write code in-house or pay costly per-seat licensing fees. "I think the software-license business model is archaic," says Kevin Harvey, a venture capitalist at Benchmark Capital, which recently cashed in on its investments in MySQL and the open source mail-client firm Zimbra, which Yahoo picked up in late 2007 for $350 million. "I wouldn't fund a company with that model, and I don't think anyone else would, either."
How can you build a business by giving away the store? The money comes from selling add-ons, service contracts, and hardware to go with the software. But that model works only if you master a couple of basics. Open source software makers have to win enough users that even the small percentage of customers who pay will generate a torrent of dollars. (Mozilla gets most of its money from Google, which pays to be the browser's default search provider — something Google is willing to do because Firefox has so many users.) More important, software makers depend on the goodwill of outside developers, whom they rely on to keep updating their products. So the new open source billionaires might want to think twice about going 767 for 767 with the Google guys. For the coder drones, accustomed to being paid in warm feelings, such displays might make them take their coding skills elsewhere.
[ 本帖最后由 Send_linux 于 2008-3-26 11:08 编辑 ]
去年春天的时候，著名市场评论人员和博客作家Hugh MacLeod在其博客上发表一篇文章，主题是：假如开源只是一个现象，那怎么冒出这么多亿万富翁呢？他的博客读者们并没有被他的文章所逗乐，很快他的博客上充满了各种漫骂和叱责，这些读者认为，开源软件是一个依赖社区运作的社会软件开发模式，需要志愿者来维护、修补和开发的，并且把它们的作品免费发布。他们认为Hugh MacLeod为开源运动中的富人排名严重亵渎了开源运动的精神。有的读者回复到：“这些开源软件的开发人员是应该得到回报，但是没你说的那么商业化”，另外一个读者评论中直接上了脏字：“shut the F**k up,你懂啥啊，净瞎说！”
但并不是所有的开源软件开发人员都是憎恶铜钱味的。已经有相当数量的开源软件公司获得了风险投资公司的亲睐，有的直接被收购。不管开源软件运动的爱好者喜不喜欢，事实摆在面前的是--越来越多的开源软件创始人已经从这个事业中获得财富。
来自咨询公司451 group的资料显示，2007年，有超过30家的开源软件公司被收购，总金额高达10亿美金，是2005年整个开源软件产业的销售额的两倍。2008年更是来的疯狂，1月份，sun公司宣布收购开源数据库厂商MySQL，单比收购的金额就高达10亿美金；开源软件企业Covalent和SpringSource宣布合并；Nokia斥资1.5亿美金收购开源移动设备软件开发商Trolltech。在华尔街，更是有许多银行家们为众多的开源企业IPO在准备着。
Mozilla公司CEOJohn Lilly表示，也有很多人问他们关于上市的事情，他说他正在考虑。目前该公司的产品是全球用户量最大的开源浏览器Firefox和桌面邮件管理软件Thunderbird。华尔街资深分析人士Henry Blodgett估计，目前的mozilla 公司价值在15亿到40亿美金之间。作为CEO，Lilly有他独到的硅谷内部人士的眼光，他认为这个价格并没有夸大，但是目前的Mozilla还是私有，因为从目前看来，Mozilla要想发展的更好，在股东和财报的压力下是没有办法做到的。
这并不是说开源软件公司在商业浪潮中不能把持住自己，他已经越来越渗透入过去想都没有想过的领域，目前开源软件已经用在许多重要的场合，过去这都是专有软件的领地。比如沃尔玛在开源系统架构上部署了他们的员工安全信息跟踪系统，费用省了一大笔。一位来自Benchmark Capital投资公司的投资人Kevin Harvey说到，“我认为基于软件授权的商业模式已经过时了，我们不会投资这种类型的公司，我想起他投资公司也不会这么做的”。他说的也许有道理，因为Kevin Harvey刚刚从投资MySQL和Zimbra中获得丰厚的回报，前者被Sun斥资10亿美金收购，后者07年的时候被Yahoo斥资3.5亿美金收购。
我们如何打造自己的全新软件商业模式呢？一般的做法无碍乎是买附加值、售后服务，或者随硬件产品OEM软件等等，而这一切都是需要基础的。现在的开源软件采用全新的模式，先是聚集许多用户，然后只要一小部分用户给钱，这收入就非常可观了。比如Mozilla，Google在其内置搜索引擎，Google掏钱也非常乐意，因为FireFox有非常多的用户。
开源软件的发展都是依照社区开发人员的意志来完成的，因为这些人对产品的影响非常大，产品的开发和维护还得依靠他们。所以这些新生的亿万富翁们得要好好想想如何笼络这些开发人员，作为社区开发人员，假如他们被奖励，他们工作的热情会更高。
Open Source Software Made Developers Cool. Now It Can Make Them Rich
By Daniel Roth Email 03.24.08 | 6:00 PM
Last spring, marketer and blogger Hugh MacLeod posted a question on his site: If open source is such a phenomenon, where are all the open source billionaires? His audience wasn't amused. Open source software relies on a community of volunteer developers who tinker on, write for, or amend a program, then give it away free. MacLeod's site filled up with complaints that even to look for billionaires violated the spirit of the open source movement. "There have to be rewards," one commenter wrote, "but they don't have to be financial." Another simply recommended that MacLeod "shut the fuck up," adding: "You don't know what you're talking about."
But not every open-sourcer has proven so averse to filthy lucre. A number of open source companies have recently attracted investments and merger interest: Whether they like it or not — and let's face it, they probably do — more and more open source creators are striking it rich.
In 2007, some 30 open source software companies were purchased for more than $1 billion — double the number of sales in 2005, according to consulting firm 451 Group. And 2008 is proving to be even more frenetic. In January alone, Sun Microsystems announced the purchase of open source pioneer MySQL for $1 billion; open source development players Covalent and SpringSource merged; and Nokia agreed to pay $153 million for the open source mobile-software maker Trolltech. On Wall Street, bankers are rooting around for a good open source company to take public. "People call us all the time," says John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla, which oversees the open source Firefox browser and Thunderbird mail application. "We're a valuable thing." On his Silicon Alley Insider site, defrocked Wall Street analyst Henry Blodgett recently estimated that the for-profit arm of Mozilla was worth between $1.5 billion and $4 billion. Lilly says the estimate is about right but that Mozilla is staying private. "As long as we can pay the bills, we can take a long view of the world that we couldn't if we had shareholders and quarterly reporting."
Which is not to say that open source companies can't hold their own in the business world. The software is penetrating realms that few thought it ever would. It's being used to create trading platforms for hedge funds — which are notoriously insistent on proprietary systems — and Wal-Mart is deploying an open source-based system for its workers to track their health care records. The cost savings come from not having to hire engineers to write code in-house or pay costly per-seat licensing fees. "I think the software-license business model is archaic," says Kevin Harvey, a venture capitalist at Benchmark Capital, which recently cashed in on its investments in MySQL and the open source mail-client firm Zimbra, which Yahoo picked up in late 2007 for $350 million. "I wouldn't fund a company with that model, and I don't think anyone else would, either."
How can you build a business by giving away the store? The money comes from selling add-ons, service contracts, and hardware to go with the software. But that model works only if you master a couple of basics. Open source software makers have to win enough users that even the small percentage of customers who pay will generate a torrent of dollars. (Mozilla gets most of its money from Google, which pays to be the browser's default search provider — something Google is willing to do because Firefox has so many users.) More important, software makers depend on the goodwill of outside developers, whom they rely on to keep updating their products. So the new open source billionaires might want to think twice about going 767 for 767 with the Google guys. For the coder drones, accustomed to being paid in warm feelings, such displays might make them take their coding skills elsewhere.
[ 本帖最后由 Send_linux 于 2008-3-26 11:08 编辑 ]
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