BY: REUVEN COHEN

To me open source marketing is about strength in numbers. I’d rather have 100,000 free users with 1000 paying customers then just 1000 paying customers.

Ian Howells of Alfresco just posted 10 rules for open source marketing.

To me open source marketing is about strength in numbers. I’d rather have 100,000 free users with 1000 paying customers then just 1000 paying customers.

The second key component in open source marketing is the use of “beta” releases. It used to be unheard of to release “beta” software to the public. Software companies would go through extended development cycles fully testing and hopefully releasing stable versions with fancy titles like XP, MX, CS or 2.0. (Vista?). Typically these proprietary software applications are tested by a small group of internal Q&A people. By releasing your software as an open source project, you not only gain greater visibility, but also a greater potential pool of developers, contributors and hopefully end customers.

A good example of this is our soon to be released Open source Xen Virtualized management console “Enomalism”�. We have yet to release any code and already have more then 500 registered beta testers signed up to try out the software. Of those 500 or so beta testers we estimate that approximately 50 or so will end up purchasing additional support and development services, more then covering the initial development costs.