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I've been saying this forever. Open source is just a tool. It's a tool you use to attract customers who want it, or employees who want it, or whatever. It's

I've been saying this forever. Open source is just a tool. It's a tool you use to attract customers who want it, or employees who want it, or whatever. It's not a product though, and it's not a sustainable business model. The choice of license you use too is a business tool. Consortia are about the only successful open source business model. The most successful such consortium is the SQLite Consortium, which clearly makes D.R. Hipp and his team very happy. One key to SQLite's business success was keeping the best testsuite for it closed source, which makes it extremely difficult to fork the project, or even to contribute to it, which leaves the team as essential to those who depend on SQLite (which includes a lot of FAANG).

ozim 6y ago
No, open source is not a tool. Open source should be the default mode of operations. It is not some kind of "can opener" to get people who might be interested in your product. Most of the software does not use "magic algorithms" that no one else cannot think of. Power of people and companies should rise from trust and professional behavior. Well it might be that there really is some magic algorithm but if someone who I cannot trust is providing that algorithm I am probably better off not using it anyway. I am willing to pay to someone who I can trust that he will do proper work, he does not have to be a "mastermind". He does not have to have some magic tricks up in his sleeve. Remember that trust and professional behavior beat any "magic algorithm" in the long run anyway. By having open source company/person is signaling that they also rely on trust, but don't use is cynically, please.