Resumen
This article focuses on free and open software. There is a new interest emerging in the venture capital community, and that is to fund startups aiming to capitalize on the growing popularity of free and open source software (FOSS), such as the Linux operating system and the Apache Web server. J-Boss Inc., for example, was incorporated in 2004 to sell technical services for the open source JBoss application server and other Java-based middleware. One of the common concerns for entrepreneurs and investors are potential business models that enable for-profit firms to take advantage of free or open source software. Clearly, there are several seemingly viable commercial opportunities, even though FOSS, in many ways, is the ultimate commoditization of at least some parts of the products business, such as infrastructure software. The major business opportunities seem to be in selling services and distributing convenient packages that include both free and open source software as well as some commercial utilities or applications.