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Open Core is over
- nkassis 16y agoRedHat has always been a very cool case. They've managed to build on the Service model everyone was trying back in the 90s and succeed. They've had to focus on the enterprise because of this while many have tried to do so for the desktop and failed Ubuntu is the last one I can think off which is attempting to do this for the desktop. Ubuntu One is an interesting attempt.
- runT1ME 16y agoI love the RedHat model. You only pay for the value they provide. Otherwise, you can run Fedora. Same with Jboss.
- tptacek 16y agoCareful. The author of this article believes he's made an observation about which open source model is more effective, but he hasn't. Rather, he's observing that there are price-insensitive markets where it doesn't make sense to hold back components, because you'll get paid either way. A (niche) counterexample to this is Nessus, the most popular open source security scanner. Until a few years ago, Nessus was entirely GPL with a commercially-licensed counterpart product. But a huge chunk of Nessus' market isn't F-500 companies with big IT budgets, but consultants, who are very price sensitive. Tenable had to retreat from GPL altogether in later versions because the market was free-riding. It is not always the case that "the most open" product wins. When you're selling mostly to big companies, IT managers will pay almost no matter what; it's actually easier for them to sign a PO than it is to drive adoption of a free offering, because IT organizations are organized around purchasing-centric projects. So it makes sense that Red Hat would keep everything maximally free, to capitalize on the marketing benefit of a thriving community.