In "Business models in FLOSS-based companies", Carlo Daffara describes an empirical study of business models based on the use of free software, undertaken in the context of the FLOSSmetrics project. The study also examines how these models handle the marketing of their products and what licences they use.
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The study started out with 120 companies, of which it eliminated those not considered to be based on FLOSS (free, libre and open source software), and those that only allowed access to the code to non-commercial users or which did not allow redistribution. It also eliminated companies that, despite making important contributions to free software projects, do not base their core business model on it (such as IBM, HP and SUN).
It selected a set of characterising features, such as licensing, products and services offered (installation, integration, training, consulting, legal and technical certification), types of contract (subscription, licence, or per-incident) and self-referential literature offered on their websites and information on their relationship with the community. Lastly, the data were collected and all non-significant variables were eliminated to obtain the following characterising variables:
Main revenue generator
Licensing model
Applying cluster analysis to the companies characterised by these variables, the study obtained six basic business models, and a seventh group that was analysed separately:
The following table shows the results of the study.