from Hacker News

Ask HN: Why fund or invest in open source software?

by rsingla on 1/12/18, 11:33 PM with 2 comments

Hi all,

I have been struggling to justify to potential funding sources and investors why they should to invest or fund open source software (or open source "anything" in general).

I commonly receive critiques that there's a lack of IP protection, and no revenue model associated with it. I, admittedly, do not have a good defence beyond some of the purist views (open access to everything and broadly benefiting to the community).

For context, my experience has been in healthcare and medicine where privacy is, to a large degree, a concern.

What are your thoughts on this - both in healthcare and in general?

Thanks!

  • by patrickaljord on 1/12/18, 11:47 PM

    Open Source projects don't generate profit by themselves so if you're expecting dividends or something you're not going to get any. If your company makes use of badly funded open source projects then it makes sense to donate first to make sure the project keeps existing and second it's good publicity to attract devs. If you're talking about companies whose product is open source such as mongodb or redhat, you must think of these companies as service companies (like IBM) and as such you should check the quality of their dev and sales service capacity to sell well, service contracts. Not sure if this answers your question.

  • by PaulHoule on 1/14/18, 11:18 PM

    $RHAT is an outlier in that it is an open source company that brings in real money. Other companies like mongodb, hortonworks, and pivotal might get some mindshare but it is hard to believe that they will make real money.