viable business model

ReadWriteWeb: "How do you make money if you give your software away for free? That's the classic question asked of Open Source software vendors and the expected reply is that they charge customers for software customization and support.

That's not the way it works anymore, though, according to a report published today by analyst firm The 451 Group."

Matt Lawton, Program Director, Software Business Strategies at IDC sent over a few choice tidbits from their survey of open source software vendors , covering their experience selling OSS in 2007.

CNet: "The majority of revenue from OSS (59% on average) is from subscriptions. In fact, 10 of 21 respondents generated 100% of their OSS revenue from subscriptions."