In other words, the free stuff becomes nothing more than a come-on. Adds Lee Hughes, CIO of Owens Forest Products, "My fear is that if a company has a free open-source version and a commercial version with enhanced features, the free version [may suffer] down the line."

Why the Model Matters

Strasnick and Hughes wouldn’t be so concerned if open-source software were still a casual plaything for their developers trying to save money on a few Web servers. But open source has become a vital part of the CIO’s software acquisition strategy—especially when it comes to infrastructure software. Research company Gartner predicts that by 2010, Global 2000 IT organizations will see open source as a viable option for 80 percent of their infrastructure software investments. CIOs can’t afford to treat open source as a throwaway, and they can’t afford to do without support for the open source that becomes a vital component of their infrastructures.

But shopping for open-source software is a very different animal from the traditional software acquisition process. The company you’re buying from is a community, the references you’re checking when you’re doing your due diligence are postings on a bulletin board, and the developers posting them may not even be employed.

Conventional wisdom says you don’t want to see how your breakfast sausage is made, but CIOs are going to have to peek into the kitchen before committing themselves to an open-source diet. There are many different business models emerging besides mixed source (see "Your Guide to Open-Source Business Models" on Page 50), so CIOs will have to cast a careful eye on these companies and communities to predict whether they will still be around in a year or two. This is now critical business research for CIOs. It’s every bit as important as tracking Microsoft’s or Oracle’s stock price, acquisition strategies and upgrade announcements.

The Money Game

Roesch bristles when you bring up the fears CIOs have about "crippled" open source. He’s got a right to be touchy. Eight years ago, he single-handedly developed the core of Snort. Since then, he estimates that he has written 3,000 postings to the Snort discussion list and carefully built a large community of users (more than 2 million downloads and 100,000 active users, he says). In return, he got what every open-source developer craves: respect, recognition and the occasional free beer from grateful users at technology conferences.

Roesch got everything except money. And that was OK. For a while.