Today’s Open Source is able to compete with its commercial competitors without any problems. After several years of use in both commerce and civil services, Open Source has turned out to be a reliable solution. It brings greater development growth than commercial software with the success of Open Source is thanks to developers from all around the world.

Open Source is a success thanks to developers from all around the world. Its biggest advantage is the opportunity for independent testing. Products enable customers to test the product at minimum cost. You can easily download and install the product, or find a company which will provide you with a product and let you test the product. It means that you buy only software which perfectly fulfils your expectations.

Rate of development

The rate of Open Source product renovation is many times higher than renovation of regular commercial products. It is caused mainly by a high number of developers. The Open Source development model of products is a process when Enter Prise Edition precedes Community Edition. Volunteers from all around the world prepare its release and it can be tested by millions of users thanks to easy accessibility. Mistakes are then corrected and the new release for Enter Prise Edition is made.

Price

Thanks to smart management model of development strategy, Open Source brings another big advantage which is price. The pricing strategy for most of the Open Source products is to pay only for complementary services such as implementation and support of these products.

Independence on Solution Supplier

Customers get a complete software source code and can change a supplier if they are not satisfied. In that case they are still allowed to interfere to the application.

Open Source vs. Commercial Open Source

Open Source can be downloaded for free and customers should not be charged. The source codes are included in the solution package and can be changed at any time. Commercial Open Source is a mixture of paid services and free products. e.g. professional support of standard solutions. Customization and delivery services (training, analytic and consulting services) are the most common business model of companies offering Open Source technologies.

Interesting numbers from the world of Open Source

Red Hat is the oldest and probably the biggest Open Source license provider. In fact they have had a turnover of about 500 million dollars in the last 12 months. Source: (http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2008/tc20081130_069698_page_2.htm)