[TriLUG] Looking for jobs... any ideas?

[Tim Jowers]

Hi Justis,

I'd love to hear what others say on this subject but here are the things
I've seen.

Example 1: ClearHealth. This is a practice management system (doctors office
SW). The company sells service around it. Also, companies *could* sell per
transaction costs (per insurance claim filed) because the competitors use
this model. E.g. each town is dominated by 4 or so insurance carriers so you
can easily write the converter to those. The USA has around 200 main
insurance companies so you have to convert the claims to their
format/interfaces to do it electronically. So, the open source is an entre'
if you will. This is an ideal OpenSource project as disparate groups can add
functionality and make it all better for everyone.

Example 2: Service and maintenance fees. I believe this is the model used by
RedHat and others. The SW industry has long used these models. E.g. BEA has
a huge licensing fee and then charges huge consulting and maintenance fees.
I suspect RedHat does the same for JBoss except for the license fee?

Example 3: Business consulting. I have a friend who sets up remote backup,
firewalls, etc. and maintains these all remotely. Because he uses Open
Source he can offer a more competitive price and also can more easily
administer the systems.

Example 4: Lowered infrastructure costs. From Yahoo! to Google and everyone
in between Open Source dominates the Internet. It is true the Internet would
not explode as fast if it were not for free software.

Example 5: Core components. It is common for software products from
commercial vendors to include open source search engines or email servers.
Also routers to include Linux.

I think the real question should be "How do you make money" and then you can
figure out how Open Source applies. As engineers we are likely to think of
the solution first but the money is made in identifying the problem/customer
need/what the market will buy. At least that's what I think from my past
efforts. Only time will tell if I get it right this time. :-) The Google
search engine was nice but it was not until they saw the idea of placing
context-sensitive ads that it became a business.

My $.02,
TimJowers


On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 12:33 AM, Justis Peters <jtrilug at indythinker.com>
wrote:

> Chris Calloway wrote:
> > On 5/12/2008 2:22 PM, Christopher L Merrill wrote:
> >
> >> Yeah, that solves all your problems.  Except that trivial little
> >> nuisance of paying the bills  ;)
> >>
> > That's what I'm talking about. Paying the bills with open source. Lotsa
> > people do.
> >
> Chris,
>
> Can you comment more on this? If lots of people are doing it, perhaps
> the rest of us need to know the path. Are you talking about selling
> services around an open source product or putting a "donate" button on
> your project's website?
>
> Kind regards,
> Justis
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