> Open core is a fairly honest way to go about developing open source software. Only if you're equally honest in admitting it's the most risky approach wrt sus

> Open core is a fairly honest way to go about developing open source software. Only if you're equally honest in admitting it's the most risky approach wrt sustainability and therefore the one most subject to strange capitalization mechanisms (and endless blog post justifications for them :-)). They go out of business all the time, leaving stale software in their wake that might have otherwise had steady maintenance if independence and growth were less paramount (like before commercialization where, in many cases, the burden was just as large). Either way, it's definitely the hardest model and if you have a piece of open source software that must have growth or you are currently no longer able to sustain it, I would try to find any other way possible to finance it...but I agree sometimes it's just not there so you build a business around it. And I'd change "developing" to "financing" since there are many more honest ways, just not at scale.