> The goal of open source is to create a market for the product that is 10x or 100x bigger than a proprietary product would have. You won't ever capture 100% of

> The goal of open source is to create a market for the product that is 10x or 100x bigger than a proprietary product would have. You won't ever capture 100% of the market. But if you capture a fraction of that larger market you still come out far ahead of the proprietary product in which you capture close to 100% of the market. The point of the post is that even if you capture a huge portion of the market, monetising it is very difficult, and profitability potential is the main reason you invest. While open source databases struggle to be profitable, MS SQL Server and Oracle are both very profitable. Why? Strong product-market fit - these products are heavily targeted at enterprise who are willing to pay money, and there is no 'free roll your own' solution to avoid paying the licence fees.