Talkers:
Florian Haas, LinBit
Thomas Uhl, LiSoG

How can a business model generate revenue?
Two methods with high risks:

1. Proprietary components: A simple version is free. If you need more, and to use it efficiently you need more, you have to pay for the proprietary parts.
2. You make software deliberately very complex and difficult to install and use. Therefore everyone needs consulting and training courses. Reduce free available documentation to a minimum.

The power of the community will invested time and money in the number one. Therefore it's important to be number one in our field to get momentum. These 2 methods are dangerous: New people are hindered to get involved into the community. Existing partners may be disappointed about "pseudo" Open Source software.

3 more promising methods:

1. Insurance: Big companies require a technical contact for problems and support contracts, up to 24/7 support. This leads to a continous income and is a main income for proprietary software vendors, too.
2. Elevator. Even almost perfect software needs enterprise specific adoptions and training for employees. It's usually cheaper to buy the service than to educate and manage everything inhouse.
3. Private helicopter: Some features are only interesting for very specific customers in a niche. These features can be offered proprietary. But they must not be useful for the whole community. Additionally the feature can become part of the common use case. Then it should be transfered to the open source codebase.

Other Advantages:
Requirements engineering can be more transparent. Paid features get a higher priority.
Customers can see progress immediately and are more willing to pay on a less formal base, which enables more agile development.

Don't forget: Viral marketing. A community has an invaluable benefit for small companies without big marketing budgets.