How open source business software works

So you've heard of open source business software. Maybe you even use it. You know it's free and can be just as good (or better) than paid-for software.

Isn’t it too good to be true? How does open source work?

Open source: a simple idea

All software is built from code. With traditional, “closed-source” software, this is considered a secret. It’s kept hidden and only available to the company which publishes the software. Open source software is based on a simple idea: giving this code away.

Isn’t this mad? Not exactly. With free access to the source code, enthusiastic open source software users voluntarily fix problems themselves – often for no other reason than they enjoy doing so. Most pieces of open source software have built up a community who are loyal to that piece of software and eager to improve it and help others.

Anyone can contribute to open source software simply by reporting what they want (or don't want) from it, and by testing what does or doesn't work. This feedback drives the development of the software by those enthusiastic users, and is equivalent to the expensive market research which traditional software companies undertake.

Open source can reduce costs

When code is open source, software developers can reuse it in any way they want. It means nobody has to reinvent the wheel - if someone’s done it, it’s there to be built upon.

This reduces the time it takes to develop software – and therefore the costs involved. What’s more, to stop others taking unfair advantage of open source software, any new software developed using existing open source code must itself be made available for other people to build upon and change.

Open source software for business

Businesses looking to use open source software generally want guarantees: they want to know they can trust and depend on the software.

This is where companies make money from open source software. They charge for specialist support, training and documentation. Many companies are happy to pay for the security of knowing that if they have a problem, someone will be available to help.

For a business considering open source software, the key thing to remember is that because the software itself costs nothing, the cost of this comprehensive support, training and documentation can compare very well to the price of equivalent closed source software.

And once you realise that, the question is not “how does open source software work”, but more “why did we not consider this before?”