Both NethServer and NethSecurity are open source projects as per the GPLv3 license, and anybody can participate. These project are being made possible and sponsored by Nethesis who describe their objectives as follows:

“NethServer and NethSecurity are a community effort, sponsored by a company Nethesis. Its business model is to sell software, support, and services to other companies, customers, and resellers. Part of the revenue is used to fund development of NethServer, official site hosting, community initiatives, sponsoring, and so on. Community and company have the same target: making NethServer better and more successful, and NethServer benefits enormously from the resources that the company invests into it.

The company pays NethServer coders to write features the customers need and works with the community to make NethServer a better product. Because the company works in the open and as part of the community, and because the code is released under the GPLv3, NethServer itself continues to be free. That’s a virtuous circle and everybody wins!”

In addition, there are several individual developers that create and maintain valuable open source apps and additions on their own free time, and do not get payed from any corporate funds. They make these available to the public via their own repository free of charge. Please take a look at the 150+ apps already available for NethServer 8.

You can also contact the individual developer if you have special needs or would like to hire him/her/them for a project or create an app.

If you find an app usefull then please consider donating to the developer. Details for each developer can be found on the individual app page.