“The open-source community gained momentum and support during
the nineties thanks to the mainstreaming of the Internet and the
support of organizations such as the Open-Source Initiative. Along
with the growth of open source have come new strategies to sustain
the projects and their communities. In an economically driven
society, many open-source projects are struggling to maintain their
purely nonprofit existence. Numerous solutions have been presented,
with some open-source projects evolving into products and others
building businesses related to the open-source project to help
provide people power and funding. This three-part series, ‘The
Business of Open Source,’ explores the business of maintaining
open-source projects and the businesses that grow out of
them…”