Free software: It's about the money

IDG News Service — Open source software developers are seeing a lot of interest in their products in Europe -- but it's North American companies that are opening their checkbooks, said speakers at Paris Capitale du Libre, a conference organized by the Federation of Open Source Software Industry.

"Europe is two to three years ahead of North America in using open source, but two to three years behind in paying for it," said Andrew Aitken, CEO of open source strategy consultancy Olliance.

At first glance, figures from Mindtouch, an open source software developer, would seem to bear that out.

"Sixty percent of our distribution is in Europe, but 80 percent of our revenue is from the U.S.," Mindtouch CEO Aaron Fulkerson said.

Most of the Mindtouch staff work in the U.S., so naturally that's where the company makes most of its money delivering services around its Wiki-like enterprise collaboration software.

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