IBM has been recently been launching projects, like Jazz, and Project Zero, under what they call a ‘Community-Driven Commercial Development’ model. I like the approach! If IBM works at it and builds the community, it will hopefully help IBM get better feedback and therefore make better products for me to use. Also, if the code is made available, I am more likely to consider building plugins as it is easier to get around bugs that might lie in IBM’s code.

My personal problem with this approach is the future product cost. In this case, it seems that Project Zero is free, but will it always be so? Now, I don’t mind as much as the cost to me, but more about the cost to other users, as this often drives adoption of the technology (which motivates me to consider making their lives easier). As a hacker I like building plugins, but before I invest energy in doing so, I want to know that potential users can use my plugin without problem. In other words, I want to understand the long term vision of the product. I have seen way too many companies that have products free (or cheap) initially as a temporary strategy to get an initial user base, a strategy which can work well for the original company in getting people exposure to the product. But such a strategy is not conducive to third-party providers who need to accordingly plan resources.

So, with respect to Project Zero, I want to know more about how IBM plans to make money with it, and quite frankly there is not enough here.