Whether it be starting and managing your own open source project for business development or simply building something up to support other open source projects in the growing support industry, there are a number of options out there.

The key is to understand how you or your company can take existing assets to take on an open source mindset with eventual profits in mind. As you can see above, it's not all that difficult to do. You simply must understand that profiting from open source software is not as straightforward as you might see in the closed source world. It takes a solid strategy, understanding of building services around the given away product itself or merely bundling in a system around open source products themselves.

Some open source purists will argue that the vision behind the open source project should be the project itself and the community that will benefit from it. But these days, it's common practice to have companies working with the community to both give back to the company that initially invested in the project.

This article originally appeared on Intranet Journal, a JupiterWeb publication.

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