Can IP(Intellectual Property) open source, what does good business model?

[luoyanghero]

Now many software, algorithms are open source (such as github website for code saving), after them open source, how do developers make money?
The algorithm (such as: encryption algorithm; communication algorithm; image, sound, word processing algorithm), hardware implementation of standard (such as: network, video, image, sound interface) -- IP(Intellectual Property), can open source?
If IP can open source, what does good business model?

 

[BradtheRad]

Not that I speak from business know-how, but I have a hunch that a programmer who demonstrates excellence (without pay) in view of the community, receives an invitation of some kind to make money before long. Luck no doubt plays a part, as well as a talent for recognizing which field has potential for growth. Also the ability to market oneself. Also the ability to negotiate a beneficial business deal. Gee, that sounds like one needs a large variety of skills, doesn't it?

In that sense the open source communities (GitHub, GNU, etc.) become an avenue for you to advertise what you have to offer. On one hand you work for free, but on the other hand it's free advertising.

Example, early home computer users had access to a wide range of shareware programs, written by various people who didn't charge money outright, but requested a fee 'after you decide their program is useful.' The fee was less than commercial businesses charged. Some shareware was good enough that programmers gained entrance to a contract with Apple, or a programming house, or enterprising business partners.

 

[ThisIsNotSam]

open hardware and open EDA initiatives exist for decades now... but I am not aware of any success story worth mentioning. VHDL is a good one, but it is not IP per se. opencores is a nice repository, but has a lot of bad cores in it.

the only business reason I see for someone making an IP public is transparency. this is a good marketing strategy for some encryption schemes where you guarantee your core does only what it says it does, nothing else. no backdoors of any sorts.

 

[luoyanghero]

open hardware and open EDA initiatives exist for decades now... but I am not aware of any success story worth mentioning. VHDL is a good one, but it is not IP per se. opencores is a nice repository, but has a lot of bad cores in it.

the only business reason I see for someone making an IP public is transparency. this is a good marketing strategy for some encryption schemes where you guarantee your core does only what it says it does, nothing else. no backdoors of any sorts.

I browsed the opencores, it is true many bad cores.

 

[ads-ee]

I browsed the opencores, it is true many bad cores.

There are also a number of the more complex cores written by companies advertising their expertise, if you go to the website of the company submitting the core you find they have a bunch of other paid for cores that are available that are much more in demand.

So they are using opencores as free advertising of their paid for cores.

 

[jt_eaton]

I know someone with a company that supports open source and even publishes app notes detailing exactly what you have to do to use it. A lot of his customers realized that it was cheaper to hire his company rather than develop the expertise inhouse.

A lot of the old stuff on opencores.org is crap. The new stuff like risc-v is modern and professional. It can do for hardware what linux did for software

 

[dick_freebird]

Open source is about doing things that matter without the idea
that you'll make money at it.

Now a business superstructure does tend to enforce discipline
and "finishing the job" while open source software projects are
never "done" (abandoned, yes; stagnant, yes).

A customer would be an idiot to pay you for somebody else's
open source software that they could download for free. On
the hardware side there is the materials cost that they would
have to pay one way or another, but the value of the IP is
up to mutual agreement. So guess what? Marketing. One of
the "business world" things that open source purists tend to
recoil from.

If you can wrap a layer of shiny around it and make the
market, the customer might know and care not at all about
the fact that 92.6% of the code base is open source, or
that nobody got paid for the circuit design and layout that
underpins it all. Value proposition and willingness to pay,
same as proprietary hardware designed in house on the clock.
Only you didn't have to. Swell. Matters not.