Can big businesses be built on the idea of giving away software free of charge?
That paradox has stumped some of Silicon Valley’s smartest investors since “open source” software broke on to the tech scene, with the rise of the Linux operating system 15 years ago.
Red Hat, which grew by selling maintenance and support to companies that used Linux, is now worth nearly $14bn. But other hopefuls fell by the wayside — even as open-source came to infiltrate many parts of the IT world, thanks to projects such as Linux and the Apache software used in most web servers.
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