Is open source about giving software to users for nothing or creative freedom for software developers? My question is rooted in the observation that most people I know who are "users" - that is people who are not able to program computers, but use computers, have little appreciation of open source, except as it gives them some nifty free - as in cost - software.

While it is true that some companies are making a living at open source I think you will find that the real value of open source is in it's ability to enable software developers to deliver value that is not free of cost to users.

If we take a "game theory" approach to open source we can easily recognize that users are "defectors" - they take our open source software and use it without contributing. To save myself from the whole "users can contribute too" argument I will include such users in the "developers" group because they are contributing. It doesn't change the fact that most users are in effect "defectors" - freeloaders who do not contribute. This is not bad; users don't cost us anything, and in fact build credibility for a project even if they contribute nothing.

If open source is free - as in cost - how can you build a business model around it? Some point to the "service model" as a business model. While there are companies who use this model it is clearly not stable from a game theory point of view. Imagine if you have several companies working with "projectX". Half the companies dedicate a software developer to contribute and maintain the software. All the companies use a "services model" to provide services.

The businesses which choose to support the project in terms of development will either pass the cost on, in which case they will get less business than the others, or absorb the cost and make less profit, which in tough times is also a losing proposition. Thus we see many examples of "open source" companies moving back to traditional pricing models. Examples include Red Hat, FuseSource, Wavemaker, SpringSource etc - companies which provide open source but base "services" on a per seat basis, rather than on the services actually provided. The "service model" in other words is bogus; wishful thinking that is clearly unstable when enough companies begin to compete.

However, there is another model which is proving very successful, and its all about the difference between users and developers. I call this model the "veneer model". In this model companies are making use of open source and contributing back to open source projects that support their objectives. This is by no means a new model. Apache Server was essentially a product of a number of companies supporting a project which gave them "use value". The veneer in this case was the online services these companies offered.

In the last ten years I have used open source in every company I have worked for. I have also contributed changes or even whole projects. This is I believe not atypical. There are many companies making use of open source infrastructure and frameworks and contributing back to them while selling a closed source software veneer to users. If you look at many open source repositories you can see that most projects are about making life easier for developers, not users.

In other words open source has become a way for developers to collaborate and share in order to improve their ability to deliver value to their customers. Customers in general do not care whether the software they get is open source or not, although there is an expectation that "open source software" is free; and there lies the rub. While we might like the comfortable idea that we are doing open source for the benefit of mankind the reality is for most open source these days is that it's done by companies in order to support a use - and that the final product more often than not has a cost.

As I said - its a heretical idea, but perhaps open source is more about giving developers creative freedom and a community in which they can cooperate than about giving users free - as in cost - software. The freedom to be creative is what inspired RMS when he started his campaign. Increasingly I see the IT community decoupling software freedoms from the expectation that software is free of cost.

One final note; I'm not suggesting that open source be "paid for". I am not suggesting we "do" anything; I simply observe how open source is fitting into the wider community.