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February 15, 2007
Customers at the gate?
So, there's a new Open Source alliance in town - the Open Solutions Alliance. The OSA has opened its doors and the list of founding companies is quite impressive. On the other side, some companies have chosen not to join and others haven't joined but are considered "friends".
To be honest I don't really care either way about this. If the vendors think it will work then heck - they're welcome to try.
Back in the "good old days" of Open Source, it was common for customers to be just as much a part of the community as the developers. In fact we were often able to acquire new customers due to the fact that they were in the community and recognized who could provide the support and services around the Open Source projects they wanted to use.
Therefore I find it interesting that customers don't seem to factor into the OSA model. As Matt points out, the customers are key to any business model.
In the end, the customers will choose the Open Source business model, company and "organisation" that fits their needs best. Just the same as they can choose the Open Source project they want to use, the company or individual that provides the support for that project, the training company and so on.
That is the freedom Open Source offers and luckily alliances can't change that.
Posted by Matthew at February 15, 2007 09:47 AM