“To some people, the whole open source business model seems
premised on a near-ancient riddle: How do you make money if you’re
giving stuff away for free? In reality, no mysticism is
involved.“Ideally, the open source vendor builds an installed user base
through free distribution of core products and then sells
complementary value-added features and services built on these
services. For potential customers, this raises the interesting
product acquisition choice of whether to go free or pay a fee for
additional features or services…”