MySQL CEO Marten Mickos recently spoke about open-source software and how its freedom does not relate simply to products, but to successful business models. He pointed out that there are 30 million developers around the world, building the Internet, often with open source, in a way that frees it from any cultural or demographic limitations.

Mickos pointed out four different ways to make money with software: through innovation, network effects, vendor scale, and lock-in. He mentioned Google and Adobe as examples of the first way, eBay and Google again for the second, big boys Microsoft, Oracle and SAP as large-scale vendors, and Oracle and Microsoft again as prime examples of lock-in. He pointed out that open source is present in the first three, and can "liberate" customers from vendor lock-in.

Mickos said, though, that open source is not a business model in and of itself, and is also no longer a differentiator. He outlined his company's way of doing business: simply put, the software is free, services are not. MySQL is written under the GPL and has formed the basis of a number of other products, even companies. Mickos believes this is the way not only of the future but of the present.