maybe stupid doubt

[baltana]

How do professional companies make money from open source and free software?
Or is it just amateur computer enthusiasts who help the OSS movement?

[hazel]

One way a company could make money is to sell complete packages: software plus conversion and training plus support. Since the software doesn't cost them anything, they can charge handsomely for the rest of the package and the buyers will still find it cheaper than Windows.

[Roxoff]

Yes, support contracts are the biggest way such companies make their money. The customers save money too, because they only buy the support they need, not what comes with a package they're paying for.

Another angle is in a consultancy role, fixing a suite of packages to meet a customer's particular need. Here open source really wins, because there is a bigger tendency to stick to published standards, so the customer ends up with software that can interact more effectively. Here the supplier is providing a valuable service before installation rather than after it. They may also be able to provide mixed services, open and closed source solutions working together. They might also make money in these scenarios producing a custom software layer to enable such applications to work together.

Money made in all these approaches is normally paid for the service supplied not for the software.