Understanding Open Source
Open Source Software
A Different Business Model
Folks sometimes feel that if something is free, it can’t be much good. They sometimes wonder why open source software exists and why people make it. Because they don’t understand the business model, they are uneasy using the product.
HTN happens to believe strongly in open source in general. We have deliberately provisioned our Cloud Hosting platforms with an array of both for-free and for-fee programs which are among the industry leaders. If you are using HTN Cloud Hosting, your server is running on the software commonly referred to as LAMP (Linux operating system, Apache web server, MySQL database, and PHP/Perl/Python programming languages). All these are open source software, meaning they are available to use under an open source license without fee. Commercial sites of all sizes use this robust stable website infrastructure. HTN has also selected several industry leaders for part of the infrastructure that happen to be for-fee, including Rackspace servers and Parallels Plesk control panel.
Fact is, you probably are using (and have used) open source software without ever being aware of it. If you have ever sent an email, you have used the SMTP, POP, and IMAP protocols that were developed for free. If you have a website anywhere, chances are overwhelming that it is running on the Apache web server. If you use WordPress, you are using one of the most popular open source content management systems.
