Client Benefits:

You are free, not a prisoner. You are:

• not waiting for bug fixes -
  are free to fix them yourself.
• not at the mercy of vendor strategic plans -
  are free to decide your own destiny.
• not tied to vendor support fees -
  are free to buy support from another agent.
• not worried about conformance to legal agreements -
  are free to ignore tracking licences.

It is also highly recommended to apply the open source policy on internal project. This methodology will protect the establishment from heavy reliance on individuals at the expense of the integrity of the entire organisation. Secret content should be minimised, and modularised.

Business Benefits:

• Development speed: Using thousands of developers, increases development speed.
• Lower overheads: Only employ a core team of developers, the rest are all over the world, free.
• Closeness to clients: Working closely with client IT teams, makes the client feel more confident of the product and service.
• Broader market: introduction and take-up within uncharted or unknown markets.

How can a business make money?

• Provide Support: Charge for your implementation & support time.
• Loss leader: Give away the core product, charge for a macro system.
• Promote hardware: Open the source code for the driver, make the hardware more attractive.
• Open standard: Use open standards, make the hardware/software more atractive, to other developers.
• Accessorise: Sell books, pre-installed systems, certification etc.

Based on original articles copyright (c) 2003 by the Open Source Initiative. Licenced under the Open Software Licence v2.0 (source available at http://www.openia.com/resources/open-source/case)