Return on investment of Open Source Software

1
Return on investment of Open Source Software

• An Ever-increasing Return on Investment

2
Closed Source Software Dev

Organization 1
Software

Organization 2
Software
0110 0110

Organization 3
Software
3
Open Source Dev. Model
Org. 1 Code in
Org. 2 New feature funders
Org. 3 Documentation in, code out

101100011
0110
0110
DOCUMENTATION
0110 1001
0110 1100
OS Community 0110 0110
Org. 4 Community-funded Developers
0110 1100
0110 1100
0110
0110
Org. 5 Customer of contributor Org.6
0110 110
0110
Org. 6 Consultant/ Contributor
1010
1010

0110 1100

IDEAS
0110 1100
0100

Org. 7 Ideas and money in, code out
Org. 8 Code and money in, code and money out
0110
4
Acquiring upgrades in both models
Acquiring Closed Source Software
Acquiring Open Source Software
OS Community 0110 0110



Org. 1
Org. 2
0110 0100
0110
0110 0110
Software
Upgrading Closed Source Software
Upgrading Open Source Software
OS Community 01100110 1001000100 101010010 101001
00

0110 0010011 0110010
Org. 1
Org. 2
0110 0001 1000 0
Upgrade
5
Ever-increasing ROI How To

• Evaluate strength of community around a project
• Contract companies and individuals that are
  heavily involved with the project (and ask their
  advice).
• Contribute back bug fixes and documentation
• Don't start new open source projects alone,
  someone else is likely working on it already
• If someone else is not working on it, then build
  on top of and improve existing communities and
  projects/toolkits
• Become a part of the open source ecosystem
• Easy to do in GeoSpatial, just join OSGeo!