Return on investment of Open Source Software An Ever-increasing Return on Investment
Closed Source Software Dev Organizatio n 1 Organizatio n 2 Organizatio n 3 $$$ Software $$$$$$ $ $$$$0110 Software
Open Source Dev. Model Org. 2: New feature funders Org. 5: Customer of contributor Org.6 Org. 4: Community-funded Developers Org. 1: Code in Org. 3: Documentation in, code out Org. 8: Code and money in, code and money out Org. 7: Ideas and money in, code out Org. 6: Consultant/ Contributor OS Co m mu nit y $$$ $$$ $ $$$ IDEAS DOCUMENTATION
Acquiring upgrades in both models Org Org. 1Org. 2 OS Comm unity0110 OS Commu nity Acquiring Closed Source SoftwareAcquiring Open Source Software Upgrading Closed Source SoftwareUpgrading Open Source Software $$$ $$ Software Upgrade $$
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!