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Right now most of the features are available under the MIT license. For example, absolutely all the integrations, CLI, API, etc are available like that. Basica

Right now most of the features are available under the MIT license. For example, absolutely all the integrations, CLI, API, etc are available like that. Basically, all the features that are needed by individuals and small teams will always stay completely free. Some of the features that we are thinking to make proprietary are audit logs, sso, role-based access controls. Would love to hear your thoughts on this, because this is still in the very active stage of development!

ensignavenger 4y ago
What you decide is "needed by individuals and small teams" is not always what an individual or small team actually needs. This makes the open core model extremely difficult to get right (I am not sure I know any examples of anyone who has continued to do it right for very long). For example, I would love SSO for my homeserver, so that I can share secrets with my family. I would guess that my family is a "small team", but many open core products don't open source SSO features. Many small actual businesses would prefer SSO too, as juggling multiple logins is as much a pain for a small team member as it is for a member of a big team. I appreciate any open source contribution even if it is missing features. I understand it can be difficult to sell a product that is 100% open source. Even when I am implementing something for a larger organization, I always prefer to specify open source over open core. I end up very rarely adopting any open core product due to missing features- and when I do, I am often spending money re-implementing the closed source features, and thus the money isn't there to pay the company for support. I don't know how common this approach is, I just know a lot of open core products get skipped by me because of limitations.
- vmatsiiako 4y ago
  Would you say GitLab didn't manage to keep it right over the period of many years? I agree that it's very hard but that's also why we talk to our community and wee what they say about what features they need. I really happy hope that we can create a great open product for small teams and individuals over a long term too.
  - ensignavenger 4y ago
    Actually, Gitlab used to be my go-to example of "Open Core done right", but now they have so many closed source features mixed in with open source features it is hard to use the open source product at all. I am either looking for a smaller product with fewer features anyway, or a product with more features (like maybe Gitlab tries to be) and the ones I want are the ones Gitlab happens to keep proprietary! Ultimately, small teams often have the same challenges large teams have. I wish you great luck! PS At some point you might want to do product comparisons on you site- one of you competitors, Hashicorp does a pretty good job of outlining the similarities and differences as they see it with similiar options, I would suggest following their example. Even if Hashicorp ultimately adds a comparison with your product, having your own perspective is very helpful in making a quick comparison.
    - dangtony98 4y ago
      I definitely share the concerns/thoughts around open core and keeping too many features closed source here; it's a very difficult thing for companies to figure out what the right balance is for public/closed-source features. There's never a correct balance that satisfies everyone but the best we can do is deliberate which features would be more individual/team-oriented and which would be more enterprise-oriented to be charged. In terms of Infisical, this is honestly something we're still figuring out as we're mapping out our roadmap ahead — We try to get feedback from our community in thinking about this since we all contribute to the codebase (also do feel free to suggest what you think would be appropriate). And yea thanks for the suggestion regarding product comparisons with competitors. We have that on the TODO list in addition to other tasks all related to enriching product information like providing more granular product pricing breakdowns!
    - mynameisvlad 4y ago
      I will definitely echo everything said here. Gitlab used to be an amazing example of doing it right but nowadays looking at their release notes, they sprinkle in one or two free features while the vast majority are locked away. They do sometimes give the peasants access to the features months or years later, but the majority of features are still locked away.

ensignavenger 4y ago

What you decide is "needed by individuals and small teams" is not always what an individual or small team actually needs. This makes the open core model extremely difficult to get right (I am not sure I know any examples of anyone who has continued to do it right for very long). For example, I would love SSO for my homeserver, so that I can share secrets with my family. I would guess that my family is a "small team", but many open core products don't open source SSO features. Many small actual businesses would prefer SSO too, as juggling multiple logins is as much a pain for a small team member as it is for a member of a big team. I appreciate any open source contribution even if it is missing features. I understand it can be difficult to sell a product that is 100% open source. Even when I am implementing something for a larger organization, I always prefer to specify open source over open core. I end up very rarely adopting any open core product due to missing features- and when I do, I am often spending money re-implementing the closed source features, and thus the money isn't there to pay the company for support. I don't know how common this approach is, I just know a lot of open core products get skipped by me because of limitations.

vmatsiiako 4y ago
Would you say GitLab didn't manage to keep it right over the period of many years? I agree that it's very hard but that's also why we talk to our community and wee what they say about what features they need. I really happy hope that we can create a great open product for small teams and individuals over a long term too.
- ensignavenger 4y ago
  Actually, Gitlab used to be my go-to example of "Open Core done right", but now they have so many closed source features mixed in with open source features it is hard to use the open source product at all. I am either looking for a smaller product with fewer features anyway, or a product with more features (like maybe Gitlab tries to be) and the ones I want are the ones Gitlab happens to keep proprietary! Ultimately, small teams often have the same challenges large teams have. I wish you great luck! PS At some point you might want to do product comparisons on you site- one of you competitors, Hashicorp does a pretty good job of outlining the similarities and differences as they see it with similiar options, I would suggest following their example. Even if Hashicorp ultimately adds a comparison with your product, having your own perspective is very helpful in making a quick comparison.
  - dangtony98 4y ago
    I definitely share the concerns/thoughts around open core and keeping too many features closed source here; it's a very difficult thing for companies to figure out what the right balance is for public/closed-source features. There's never a correct balance that satisfies everyone but the best we can do is deliberate which features would be more individual/team-oriented and which would be more enterprise-oriented to be charged. In terms of Infisical, this is honestly something we're still figuring out as we're mapping out our roadmap ahead — We try to get feedback from our community in thinking about this since we all contribute to the codebase (also do feel free to suggest what you think would be appropriate). And yea thanks for the suggestion regarding product comparisons with competitors. We have that on the TODO list in addition to other tasks all related to enriching product information like providing more granular product pricing breakdowns!
  - mynameisvlad 4y ago
    I will definitely echo everything said here. Gitlab used to be an amazing example of doing it right but nowadays looking at their release notes, they sprinkle in one or two free features while the vast majority are locked away. They do sometimes give the peasants access to the features months or years later, but the majority of features are still locked away.