Successful Open Source Companies

Yes, the focus of the title of this post is on the companies, but I would argue that much of the discussion is (of course) on the ecosystems surrounding them. Two links here, which I will do my best to summarize a little later (but I did not want to lose the links):

• An Entiva Group Analyst posts his ideas about what makes for a successful commercial open source operation, and it's a pretty good list.


• A principal with venture capital firm Hummer Winblad opines that the three most important letters in open source are CYA. This article confirms much of what we have discussed and/or encountered several times in talking with other folks about the OSS business.

I'm sure there are other posts out there (in particular,look through Matt Asay's interesting and voluminous blog posts), but these will do for now. I'll recap and summarize later.