We have all heard of the plethora of ways to make money from open source.
1) Offer services
2) Premium support
3) Customization
These money making avenues are usually coupled with large, successful, open source projects with enterprise user bases:
- Linux
- MySQL
- Apache
- PHP
- SugarCRM
- Mambo, Joomla, etc
What about smaller projects which are intended to serve a vertical market, which are done right, both in Interface and Implementation.
Software IMHO should be so simple, there is no need for service or support. This kind of defeats the arguments for making money from open source. So my question becomes this: "Perhaps the open source model only applies to large business?"
Cheers :)