4 ms·

There's nothing wrong with monetization. There's just something wrong with making parts of the code proprietary. There'd be nothing wrong with monetizing by pic

There's nothing wrong with monetization. There's just something wrong with making parts of the code proprietary. There'd be nothing wrong with monetizing by picking a copyleft license and selling exceptions, selling hosting, or selling support, for example.

vmatsiiako 3y ago
Curious why you think it's the wrong way to do it?
- josephcsible 3y ago
  Because then you're making and monetizing a proprietary product rather than actually monetizing FOSS.
  - vmatsiiako 3y ago
    I'm not sure if I understand your point. OSS != FOSS https://opencoreventures.com/blog/2023-07-open-core-is-misunderstood-business-model/ https://opencoreventures.com/blog/2023-07-open-core-is-misun...
    - josephcsible 3y ago
      > OSS != FOSS While this statement is technically true, I don't think it has any relevance to the topic at hand. While there are some relatively obscure licenses that are OSS but not FOSS (e.g., the Sybase Open Watcom Public License), isn't everything under discussion here either both free and open source, or neither free nor open source? In particular, the "core" of Open Core is both, but the extras are neither.
nine_k 3y ago
Dual licensing (copyleft + commercial) has been a thing for a long time. Open Core is also a thing, and I think it's better than BSL because at least the core part is truly open.
- josephcsible 3y ago
  I have nothing against dual licensing, but that's not what "enterprise features" are. As for Open Core, there is one case in which I think that's fine: when none of the proprietary parts would be useful at all in an otherwise 100% FOSS environment. For example, if Linux support were FOSS but all the Windows- and macOS-specific code were proprietary, or if a plugin to talk to Bugzilla were FOSS but a plugin to talk to JIRA were proprietary, I wouldn't see a problem.
  - yencabulator 3y ago
    Open Core usually fails the FOSS community when the company either 1) makes some essential features like OAUTH/SSO or 2FA Enterprise only, or 2) is openly hostile toward open source components that compete with its own Enterprise features. How well would your example companies deal with a PR adding open source macOS platform support, or an open source JIRA bridge?
fiddlerwoaroof 3y ago
I tend to trust “side project” OSS software more than OSS software that is some company’s main product. Something like Apache Samza that a company builds for some aspect of its operations and then opens seems to be more trustworthy long-term because the commercial backer doesn’t have to compete with *aaS providers for their main source of revenue. Such projects obviously have their own problems (neglect, deprioritization of features the maker doesn’t need now), but otoh, the maintainers are more likely to accept contributions adding features because they have to think less about market segmentation and such.

vmatsiiako 3y ago

Curious why you think it's the wrong way to do it?

josephcsible 3y ago
Because then you're making and monetizing a proprietary product rather than actually monetizing FOSS.
- vmatsiiako 3y ago
  I'm not sure if I understand your point. OSS != FOSS https://opencoreventures.com/blog/2023-07-open-core-is-misunderstood-business-model/ https://opencoreventures.com/blog/2023-07-open-core-is-misun...
  - josephcsible 3y ago
    > OSS != FOSS While this statement is technically true, I don't think it has any relevance to the topic at hand. While there are some relatively obscure licenses that are OSS but not FOSS (e.g., the Sybase Open Watcom Public License), isn't everything under discussion here either both free and open source, or neither free nor open source? In particular, the "core" of Open Core is both, but the extras are neither.

nine_k 3y ago

Dual licensing (copyleft + commercial) has been a thing for a long time. Open Core is also a thing, and I think it's better than BSL because at least the core part is truly open.

josephcsible 3y ago
I have nothing against dual licensing, but that's not what "enterprise features" are. As for Open Core, there is one case in which I think that's fine: when none of the proprietary parts would be useful at all in an otherwise 100% FOSS environment. For example, if Linux support were FOSS but all the Windows- and macOS-specific code were proprietary, or if a plugin to talk to Bugzilla were FOSS but a plugin to talk to JIRA were proprietary, I wouldn't see a problem.
- yencabulator 3y ago
  Open Core usually fails the FOSS community when the company either 1) makes some essential features like OAUTH/SSO or 2FA Enterprise only, or 2) is openly hostile toward open source components that compete with its own Enterprise features. How well would your example companies deal with a PR adding open source macOS platform support, or an open source JIRA bridge?

fiddlerwoaroof 3y ago

I tend to trust “side project” OSS software more than OSS software that is some company’s main product. Something like Apache Samza that a company builds for some aspect of its operations and then opens seems to be more trustworthy long-term because the commercial backer doesn’t have to compete with *aaS providers for their main source of revenue. Such projects obviously have their own problems (neglect, deprioritization of features the maker doesn’t need now), but otoh, the maintainers are more likely to accept contributions adding features because they have to think less about market segmentation and such.