This model--companies that spearhead open-source projects while simultaneously building profit-driven enterprises around the efforts--is unproven and certainly open to doubts. Independent open-source developers, for example, have less influence in projects managed by these companies, so there isn't the wide-open potential for innovation that Linux fans tout. At MySQL, "99% of the key contributors are on the payroll and have equity in the company," Urlocker says. Code contributors must sign over rights to MySQL AB.
"I have to admit that that is one particular set of problems I personally have always tried very hard to avoid," says Torvalds, who's working on the Linux kernel for the Open Source Development Lab, a nonprofit consortium of technology companies that includes Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Intel. "On the other hand, I also suspect that, especially in markets that are pretty focused on commercial needs anyway, and things like databases certainly would fit that, it may just be inevitable and possibly the best model to keep in touch with the needs of your customers."
Perhaps the biggest question for these second-generation companies will be the involvement of established technology companies. SAP last year turned over the source code for its SAP DB relational database to MySQL AB. The move came after SAP concluded, "We're not a database vendor," says Shai Agassi, an SAP executive board member. Yet SAP wanted to continue to support and develop the system, so about 80 developers at SAP continue to work on the software. They turn their work over to MySQL AB, which offers it as MAX DB for transactional and high-performance uses.
Finding a company to support the widening number of open-source pieces can be a challenge, says Burton Group analyst Gary Hein. Aztec Software Inc. and Gluecode Software are two companies looking for a niche providing service and support for software stacks that combine various open-source products.
James Chaney, senior project manager at Consolidated Communications Inc., purchased Gluecode's stack, guaranteed to work together, for $15,000, combined with a $15,000 proprietary business-process engine and portal server that works with it. Chaney can use the Gluecode package on an unlimited number of servers. He figures he would have spent $100,000 per CPU for the same functionality in commercial software. As a result, he's using Apache, Linux, MySQL, the PHP scripting language, and Tomcat, and expects to add JBoss later.
