“Open source software companies are in a strange business: they
don’t usually own exclusive rights to publish the open source
software they sell, and many have little or nothing to do with the
development of much of the software they sell. Also, by definition,
anyone can download their product–open source software–for free.
So how does a company like Red Hat win new customers when anyone,
including their potential customers and competitors, can get the
source code to Red Hat’s flagship product, Red Hat Enterprise
Linux? And why is that an advantage, not a problem…?”