Red Hat is the biggest open source software success story – a rebuke to those who, only a few years back, wondered whether open source companies could make any money at all.

 

"Executive summary
The Ovum view
SWOT analysis
Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats
Making open source bigger and boring
Expanding open source to new markets
Making open source easier to consume
Focus on value and opex
A recent renewed focus on low cost may prove dangerous
Pricing is stable, though, and value is recognised
Focus on opex rather than capex
A tactical approach to open source licensing
Red Hat prefers the GPL but uses other licences
JBoss prefers the LGPL, but JBoss projects are free to use their own licences
Generating more money from open source
New free-to-pay initiative
Needs to be better structured and expanded
Becoming an open source ecosystem hub
A new mission statement
Project perspective: open source contributor and defender
Contributor and technology innovator (rather than technology packager)
A growing contributor of acquired and internally developed technology
Turning other organisations into open source contributors
Red Hat as an open source community hub
Open source defender against IPR threats
An open standard supporter
Partner perspective: From RHX to OSCA
Red Hat Exchange (RHX) open source procurement hub
Failed to take off
Now replaced by the Open Source Channel Alliance (OSCA)
Among other partner-related initiatives
Customer perspective
Some organisations already contribute
Increasing customer involvement
Some (wrongly) disagree
Red Hat needs to approach the issue better, though
Open source impact on partners
Grown apart from Oracle
Closer to Microsoft
No plain sailing
A beacon that many like to dismiss
An awkward player
A stunted bottom-up approach to marketing