Open source: “pay or contribute” model

This article mainly talks about the support of outside development contributions in open source softwares. The case mentioned in this article is the encouragement of these outside development contributions in Jahia, a kind of open-sourced Web Content Integration software. It is called “pay or contribute”.

I agree, as the author Asay says, the most important and difficult part for open source softwares is how to find contributors to provide applications. Because open source softwares, comparing with softwares that has own developers, is hard to survive without anyone using its code and developing applications for it. This problem also can be seen as a weak point for open source-based websites competing with websites who have own producers. Therefore, Jahia provides lots of discount on commercial subscription to stimulate application developers using its platform, producing apps and providing apps.

In China, there is a social networking website, called Xiaonei, which is similar to Facebook performing well. It focused on its users, most are students, and provides a lot of interesting applications to attract these users. At the beginning, it succeeded by using free charging policy for those app providers, regardless of the app’s quality. Then, it built a good reputation in students and increased user groups so that more application providers willing to provide products for it. And now, it costs money. This, in my opinion, is a good strategy for a open source-based softwares or websites.

Like this article mentioned about Jahia, using different marketing strategy and changing traditional operating method may be the solution when open source is growing but facing many troubles.


Article: A look inside Jahia's 'pay or contribute' open-source model.
from: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10251115-16.html