The software business after code scarcity

The useful part

I released Drupal for free more than twenty-five years ago, and later co-founded Acquia, which has grown into a large enterprise software company built around Drupal. Granted, Drupal is free in a different way than applications are free, but I'm not sure that changes the basic question of how to build a successful business around either one. Open Source made code abundant by giving people broad rights to use, modify, and redistribute it.

How it works

• Free code changes what customers pay for Because anyone could use Drupal for free, Acquia could never build a durable business around access to the code.
• We built that business around helping enterprises build, run, and manage Drupal applications throughout their lifecycle.
• That includes hosting, but goes well beyond it: the tools and services needed to develop, deploy, secure, scale, monitor, and improve applications in production.
• Proprietary SaaS typically bundles access to the application with the hosting and operations required to run it.
• With Open Source, organizations can run the software themselves or choose who hosts and operates it.

What to take from it

I have lived with a version of that question longer than most. As AI makes applications cheaper to recreate, the traditional SaaS bundle of software and operations comes under pressure. Customers may become less willing to pay for access to application functionality without becoming any less willing to pay to run and manage applications in production.

Details worth keeping

From the start, we had to make money another way. For Open Source businesses those economics are not new.