Mailing the story:
Taking the plunge into open source
More software companies are finding that the best way to make money with software is to give it away, cherry-picking open-source software practices for commercial gain. On Monday, a small software company called Aras will release the code of its design application--written entirely with Microsoft technologies--and shift to an open-source business model. For a small company faced with tepid growth, letting anyone download its application for free was a risk worth taking.