Which is to say an open source business model that will generate marginal revenue improvement for firms that employ it, at the cost of developer goodwill and participation. And, potentially, distribution. What open core is not is a model that will mitigate the commercial limitations of the model sufficiently to produce outsized returns similar to historical software producers.

I’ve talked in the past about a number of “open source” business models. There’s the MySQL “dual license” model, where all the software is available under an open license but a proprietary license can be purchased.

GoAhead Software Moves to Open Source Business Model. GoAhead® Software today announces that it is shifting its business model and technology strategy from its proprietary SAFfire product to an open source software model. Simultaneous with the move to open source, GoAhead is announcing the acquisition of Avantellis from Emerson Network Power.

Lawndart is an open-source model rocket simulation for Linux, designed to accurately simulate the flight of a model rocket from launch to landing. Lawndart will be released in stages to test more fundamental components of the software, and adding capability as those components are tested and verified.

The open-source business model that relies solely on support and service revenue streams is failing to meet the expectations of investors

I am sure you all know that the open source model is vastly different to the closed source model. Sure there are many similarities, especially for large projects, however there are very important differences. The main one being that the source code is open to all :)

What do you see as the biggest danger to open-source software today? On the one hand, there's still a locus of resistance. Microsoft still maintains strongly the view that its business model, which depends upon concealing source code from users, is a viable and important and indeed necessary model.

Jim Whitehurst warns against overlooking power of open source model to radically improve business

Jim, you’re simply arrogant (à la Steve Ballmer, just in a different way) when you say: "If you think about it, at Red Hat, we’re defining a whole new business model. Red Hat is the only model that exists that is able to monetize something that’s free."