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Open source software has come a long way. It used to be a poor man's alternative, but in recent years, the quality of the open source software have grow from strength and strength, and are appearing in more and more desktops.

While most of the open source software are available free-of-charge (especially for non-commercial use), there are those that comes with better support that charges a premium. For example, in the operating system (OS) world, Red Hat has been one of the most widely used Linux OS, along with SUSE Linux and others. There is also a version of office suite by SUN Microsystems that will cost you quite a fair amount of money.

So, is there a money making opportunity here? Most definitely. As many software are in the hundreds of megabytes, someone who has a slow internet connect will love to pay you to get their hands on the software. Usually, there are provision for you to charge material cost (eg, cost of CD-ROM), postage and handling cost, and a small effort' cost.

But if anyone can download and sell the same software, how do I stand out among the crowd? Here are some of my personal experiences that I would like to share, and you'll probably have some of you own experiences that you can add to it.

Firstly, been truthful right from the beginning will be helpful to your cause. Do not attempt to cheat your buyer by passing off as the same product as their commercial cousins. While I truly believe many of these open source software are as worthy as their commercial counterparts, there are not the same product. After all, big companies like Microsoft, Symantec, Adobe (just to name a few) have poured indecent amount of money into creating their products, and will come with full support. Open source software is much different, it is usually a result of like-minded people who come together to create and improved the products. Support is usually in the form of a forum, and not all are frequently updated. So stating it clearly will avoid any dispute later on.

I'm not saying that open source software are inferior to commercial software, but it is important to let your buyer know that they are buying an open source software. Software like OpenOffice.org has been widely used by many government agencies around the world, so it shows its value as an open source software.

But just downloading a product such as OpenOffice.org and burnt it into a CD-ROM and trying to sell it is not enough. Ensure you have a nice picture/graphic to show your potential buyer, as they likely to be more attracted to it if there is a nice picture for them to see. Also, make sure you use CD-Label for your CD-ROM and not handwritten title on the CD-ROM.

Do bundle various useful open source software together so that your buyers will feel that it is value for money to buy from you and not spend the time downloading all the different software from different websites. The better your bundle, the more likely they will want to buy from you. Also, make sure your software are up-to-date. If there are any newer versions, make sure you update yours too. And finally, charge a reasonable price for your service.

You can either set up a website to sell your software, or list it on Ebay. Ebay is probably the easier way as you know that many people are already searching Ebay for these software. Setting up your own website will be great if you are able to direct traffic to it and it could potentially means lesser competition. Either way, you are on the way to making your first dollar online.

Learn more about this author, KELTONG.
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