I think open-core can work well, when done right - as long as you're not necessarily crippling your FOSS offering compared to the paid version(s). When the cod

I think open-core can work well, when done right - as long as you're not necessarily crippling your FOSS offering compared to the paid version(s). When the code is likely to be used by other businesses, for example. There's generally a trade-off between time and price: use the open core, develop your own additions to add in the extra functionality you want -- or buy a license and use the "premium" features. I can see there's a whole ecosystem built up around kubernetes, cloud management and microservice meshes, for example. You can set it all up for free using the FOSS offerings but it will sink a lot of time learning how to and maintaining the stack. Or you can pay to use someone elses "batteries included" distro which can be deployed with a few commands and save yourself a lot of time but spend $$$($..$??). As long as projects don't actively refuse to accept contributions to the core, respond well to issues, document stuff well and keep a nice pluggable architecture allowing other people to fork it and hack in their own features, you're allowing people to choose between time or money. Benefits of having a "pro" version also filters down to the open core - if you're wanting to market your product to businesses, you're likely going to spend more effort on making it more user-friendly and therefore documentation and howto guides become more slick and comprehensive.