FreeNAS is one of two open source operating systems that my company, iXsystems, develops and distributes free of charge and is at the heart of our line of TrueNAS enterprise storage products. While some of our competitors sell storage software similar to FreeNAS, we not only give it away but also do so with truly no strings attached — competitors can and do take FreeNAS and build products based on it with zero obligation to share their changes. The freedom to do so is the fundamental tenet of permissively licensed open source software, and while it sounds self-defeating to be this generous, we’ve proven that leadership, not licensing, is the true secret to a successful open source business model.

We each have our own personal definition of what is fair when it comes to open source. At iXsystems, we made a conscious decision to base FreeNAS and TrueOS on the FreeBSD operating system developed by the FreeBSD project. We stand on the shoulders of giants by using FreeBSD and we consider it quite reasonable to give back on the same generous terms that the FreeBSD project offers us. We could be selective in what we provide free of charge, but we believe that doing so would be short-sighted. In the long game we’re playing, the leadership we provide over the open source projects we produce is infinitely more important than any restrictions provided by the licenses of those and other open source projects. In the face of this “legal piracy,” our secret to staying several steps ahead of the competition is to continuously innovate our “free” software and be the go-to source of information about it and the hardware to run it on. Our software runs on just about any personal computer, but the right hardware is critical to delivering quality, reliable data storage.

Twenty years in, we have no reason to change our free-software-on-great-hardware business model and giving away the software has brought an unexpected side-benefit: the largest Q/A department in the world, staffed by our passionate users who volunteer to let us know every thought they have about our software. We wouldn’t change a thing, and I encourage you to find exactly what win-win goodwill you and your company can provide to your constituents to make them not just a customer base but a community.

Here are some tips to use if you want to win the long game in computing:

Drive The Conversation

It took a leap of faith for us to give away the heart of our products in exchange for a passionate community, but doing so changes your customer’s relationship with your brand from priced to priceless. This kind of relationship leverages a social contract instead of a legal one. Taking this approach empowers your users in ways they will not experience with other companies and it is your responsibility to lead, rather than control them with a project like FreeNAS. Taking this approach requires mutual trust, but that trust is invaluable once earned. You will invariably slip up from time to time but if you handle it correctly, the trust only grows stronger.

Relieve Customer Pain Points With Every New Release