Every now and then someone asks “if it’s open source, how do you make money from it?” Instead of crafting an answer ourselves, we asked Sanna Jokela, the CEO of Gispo Finland Ltd. to give us her view on monetizing an open source software like Oskari. With extensive experience in open source projects and a background as the communications coordinator for Oskari, Sanna gives us her insights on the topic.

Guest blog: How to make money with Oskari?

Oskari is an open source spatial data software and the same rules apply to its business potential as to other open source GIS. Oskari requires installation, maintenance, development, support and user training. That’s already a few sources of money for a consultant or an IT firm.

If you are going into the product business with open source code, you need to understand the various licences, as licences dictate what can be done on top of the software. Depending on how new creations based on the open source software have been licensed, some other company can skim off the top and take the product. The industry has seen cases like this, and that's why some companies that were previously more open have restricted their licenses. In such cases the open source core often continues by itself - some of them fade away and some live happily ever after.

For Oskari, the license supports product business opportunities. Just use Oskari as a foundation and come up with new ideas for new map service implementations on top of it. SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions are now the latest craze, especially in the public sector, where organizations don't want the responsibility of maintaining the numerous purchased services. Oskari can be offered as SaaS, meaning all the services the customer needs are ready, neatly packaged and provided with a monthly maintenance fee.

But why aren't such services so more widespread? Making a product is terribly expensive. It demands investment, work and sweat. The traditional consulting firms often shy away from investment, because it means taking out a loan - the idea has to be extraordinary. Furthermore, the buyer base has to be as broad as possible. If we are talking about the Finnish market, the audience for map services is probably too small a market area. You have to think globally. You have to find a problem that can be solved anywhere in the world with the same service, and that requires ideas!

In any case, open source is a huge advantage in the product business. Much of the foundational work has already been completed by others and is readily available for use. This significantly reduces development costs in the initial investment phase. Products built on top of Oskari have huge potential when approached with the right combination: a strong idea, thorough market research, proper investment and effective implementation. Et voilà!

As fair actors in open source, service businesses should also contribute back to the open source project and the community. In other words, development work and funding also come into the core of open source. It is important for these businesses, otherwise the core of their product will deteriorate. That is why many open source software have different sponsoring systems and associations that fund the ongoing development. Oskari also has its own network (the Joint Development Forum) through which the development work can be financed.

… And that is how you can monetize Oskari. And the same applies to other open-source software like QGIS, GeoServer and PostGIS.