Commercial open-source applications

Open source software is widely used for private and non-commercial applications. In addition, many commercial organizations use open source frameworks, modules, and libraries inside their proprietary, for-profit products and services. Since GNU and some other open source licenses stipulate that derived works must distribute their intellectual property under an open source (copyleft) license, legal and technical mechanisms have been developed to accommodate vendors' commercial goals:

1. A dual-license model, where a code base is published under a traditional open source license and a commercial license simultaneously. Vendors typically charge a perpetual license fee for additional closed-source features, supplementary documentation, testing, and quality, as well as intellectual property indemnification to protect the purchaser from legal liability.
2. Functional encapsulation, where an open source framework or library is installed on a user's computer separately from the commercial product, and the commercial product uses the open source functionality in an "arm's length" way (under the argument that the commercial product was shipped without the open source library, even though it uses it). Vendors typically charge a perpetual license fee for the functionality that they provide under closed source, as they usually don't provide services or other direct value for the open source elements.
3. A software as a service model, under the argument that the vendor is charging for the services, not the software itself (because the software is never shipped to customers or installed on their computers). Vendors typically charge a monthly subscription fee for use of their hosted applications.
4. Not charging for the software, but only for the support, training, and consulting services that assist users of the open source software. Vendors typically charge an annual fee for support, per-student fees for training, and per-project fees for consulting engagements.

An often-asked question is, "are vendors making real money at this?" In terms of a traditional enterprise software company, this is probably the wrong question to ask. Looking at the landscape of open source applications, many of the larger ones are sponsored (and largely written) by system companies such as IBM and Sun who may not have an objective of software license revenues. Their motivation tends to be more strategic, in the sense that they are trying to change the rules of a marketplace and reduce the influence of vendors such as Microsoft. In the case of smaller vendors doing open source work, their objectives may be less "immediate revenue growth" and more "developing a large and loyal community," which may be the basis of a corporate valuation at merger time.

Except for Red Hat and VA Software, no other pure open source company has gone public in the major stock markets. However, two firms on the list below may go public during 2008. The remainder are likely to be acquired, as is the norm for all pre-public software companies.

List of Commercial Open Source Applications and Services

Product or Service Name (business models used)	Vendor	Description	Current Version	Open Source Project Name	Ver 1.0 Date
Alfresco (1,3,4)	Alfresco	Enterprise Content Management, Web Content Management	2.2	Alfresco Labs	2006
Compiere (1,3,4)	Compiere	ERP and CRM	2.6.1	Compiere	2000?
OpenWorkbench (1,4)	Computer Associates	Project Management / Governance Tools	1.1.4	Open Workbench	2004
db4o (1,4)	db4o	ODBMS	6.0	db4o	?
PowerFolder Pro(1,2)	PowerFolder	File sync, access, sharing and backup solution	2.2.0	PowerFolder	2004
Funambol Server (1,4)	Funambol	Mobile Email and PIM Synchronization	6.0	Funambol (neé Sync4j)	2001
Poseidon for UML (1)	Gentleware	Software Modeling Tool	6.0	ArgoUML	1998
Hyperic HQ Enterprise (1)	Hyperic	Systems & Application Management	3.1	Hyperic HQ	2004
Lotus Symphony (1,4)	IBM	Office Productivity Suite		Eclipse, OpenOffice	2007
Rational Application Developer (1,4)	IBM	Software Development Tools		Eclipse	2002?
Websphere (1,4)	IBM	Web Server, Application Server, Middleware		Apache	2002?
Ingres Enterprise (1)	Ingres	RDBMS	2006 Rel. 2	Ingres	?
Intalio BPMS (1,4)	Intalio	Business Process Management - Workflow	?	Eclipse, Intalio	?
Interface21 Framework (1)	Interface21	Software Development Framework	1.1	Spring	?
Snare (1,4)	InterSect Alliance	Log collection and analysis	4.0	Snare	2001
FUSE ESB(4)	IONA	Enterprise service bus	v3	Apache ServiceMix	2006
FUSE Services Framework(4)	IONA	JAX-WS 2.0 service-enablement framework	v2	Apache CXF	2006
FUSE Mediation Router(4)	IONA	Routing and process mediation engine	v1	Apache Camel	2006
FUSE Services Message Broker(4)	IONA	JMS platform	v5	Apache ActiveMQ	2006
Business Intelligence Suite (1)	JasperSoft	Report Writing System	2.0	Jasper	1996
Jitterbit Integration Server (1,4)	Jitterbit	Application Integration	1.3	Jitterbit	2006?
KnowledgeTree (1,3,4)	KnowledgeTree	Document and Records Management System	3.4	KnowledgeTree	2004
Project Lasso (1)	LogLogic	collect Windows event logs	4.0.0	Project Lasso	2006
MySource Matrix (1,4)	Squiz.net	Enterprise Content Management System	v3.16.4	MySource Matrix	2002
Mule (1,4)	MuleSource	Enterprise Service Bus and Integration Platform	1.4	Mule	2003
MySQL (1,4)	MySQL	RDBMS	5.0	MySQL	2000
Openbravo (4)	Openbravo	ERP	2.33	Openbravo ERP	2001
Berkeley DB (?)	Oracle	DBMS engines	4.6, 3.2, 2.3	Berkeley DB, Java edition, XML edition (neé Sleepycat)	2003?
Project.net (3,4)	Project.net	Project and Portfolio Management	8.2.1	projectnet	2000
JBoss (1,3,4)	Red Hat	J2EE Application Server	4.2	JBoss	2001
SugarCRM (1,3)	SugarCRM	Sales Force Automation	5.0	SugarCRM	2004
Solaris (1,4)	Sun	Operating System	10	Open Solaris	2005?
Star Office (4)	Sun	Office Productivity Suite	8.0	OpenOffice	2000
Sun Studio (1,4)	Sun	Software Development Tools for C, C++	8.1	NetBeans	2000
NetBeans (1,4)	Sun	Software Development Tools (Java, Ruby, Perl, PHP, etc.)	6.0	NetBeans	2000
Java Enterprise System (1,4)	Sun	Application Server, Middleware, LDAP, etc.	5	Java	2003?
Cruise Control Enterprise (4)	ThoughtWorks	Software Development Tools	1.0	CruiseControl	2007
RubyWorks (1,4)	ThoughtWorks	Software Development Tools / Runtime Environment	1.0	Several	2007
Tripwire Enterprise (1)	Tripwire	System and Network Management	7	Tripwire	2000?
Untangle (1)	Untangle	Network Gateway Platform	5.0	Untangle	2007
Vyatta (1,4)	Vyatta	Router, firewall, VPN	VC3	Vyatta Community	2006
Zimbra (1,3,4)	Zimbra	Enterprise Email Messaging and Collaboration	5.0.3	Zimbra Open Source Edition	2004

References & External Links

• Open Solutions Alliance
• Open Source Development Labs
• Open Source ERP comparison,tutorials,recorded flash demos and industry analysis