4 ms·

I just wanna remind folks that Open Core is not the same as Open Source. I didn't look at specifics, but I was triggered by this comment: > Some people call ou

by zeeg 2y ago

I just wanna remind folks that Open Core is not the same as Open Source. I didn't look at specifics, but I was triggered by this comment: > Some people call our strategy "open-core" and that's technically right. Still, I'd rather say that we have two pieces of software: one that is open-source and another that is not. I think that's more honest because we're not trying to hide the fact that we're selling a non-open-source version of our software. I'm not morally opposed to open core software - and any version of more open source is valuable open source to me - but I think its important we do not conflate the two, just as we need to not conflate other approaches like source available.

unclad5968 2y ago
Open core and open source are orthogonal. Open core is a description of what part is open source. Just because the entirety isnt open source doesn't mean the part that is somehow isn't. At least that's the idea OP is trying to communicate, which makes sense to me.
- yawnxyz 2y ago
  I think the author did a great job communicating that some parts of software are fully open, and a few other pieces of code / repost are not. I like this way better than software with complicated licensing schemes, where you can only use certain packages on Wednesdays.
danenania 2y ago
I would argue that they are not in any way exclusive of each other or opposed to each other. An open source project can be built upon and extended by anyone, and that includes its creators. We don’t say that an open source project is diminished because some third party productizes it and makes money. PostgreSQL is not diminished by neon or rds. No, we continue to judge the project on its own merits. If it continues to offer value, to be compelling, well-supported, and stack up well against alternatives, then we keep using it. We don’t think “it doesn’t have all the features of rds, so screw postgres”. If the commercial side of the project takes away from the oss side and the oss project goes downhill as a result, then that certainly is a frustrating and disappointing outcome. But when both sides are thriving, it’s a fantastic win-win. The maintainers get to focus their full attention and passion on the project. The community gets better and better software. And people who are willing to pay for advanced or niche use cases get their problems solved too. Summing up, the problem is not with the whole model of open core, but with specific projects and companies that get it wrong. There’s no fundamental reason why the oss side and the product side have to be at odds. It’s just freemium, and there are countless successful and beloved freemium products out there who figured out how to get the balance right.
- zeeg 2y ago
  Postgres is not operated by the same people as Neon or Amazon, thats a fundamental difference. I was also not suggesting commercial cannot benefit Open Source (and would in fact quite the opposite). In general I was not commenting if they're opposed, but suggesting an Open Core project is Open Source is not truthful. "Core" is a meaningless term, and if we suggest any Open Core project is Open Source, I can easily academically argue that the majority of businesses are Open Core, thus Open Source, and we'd all agree that's not true. This project is Open Core, and thats fine, but Open Core is not inherently Open Source, and if we're going to care about that term in some contexts (e.g. with Fair Source) we need to care about it in all contexts.
  - nikita 2y ago
    At neon we only worry about hyperscalers particularly Amazon. But they already have Aurora so we just open source everything under Apache 2.0 Being open is extremely important to us to build trust and we had this since day 1. VCs are fine with it because monetization is all cloud
  - ezekg 2y ago
    I'm not sure I personally agree with this, and I'm not 100% sure the developer community at-large does either... Let's take a few examples, which I've shared elsewhere in similar discussions: - GitLab: Open Source or Open Core? Most would say open source, but (I assume) you would argue open core [0]. - Plausible: Open Source or Open Core? They say open source, but it's actually open core [1]. - Cal.com: Open Source or Open Core? They say open source, but once again, open core [2]. - Posthog: Open Source or Open Core? They say open source, but actually open core [3]. - Sidekiq: Open Source or Open Core? Open... core [4]. Yet, every dev I know would consider these projects Open Source... and yet also Open Core. So there's a disconnect somewhere. Under this mindset, very few open source startups are actually open source, yet everybody says they are? I'm not trying to argue either way; I'm trying to point out a real disconnect. Is everybody just open-washing? Why's that allowed? [0]: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/blob/master/ee/LICENSE?ref_type=heads https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/blob/master/ee/LICENS... [1]: https://github.com/plausible/analytics/blob/2dd2f058d1dcae6f0913157235bada5dae102b61/extra/lib/license.ex https://github.com/plausible/analytics/blob/2dd2f058d1dcae6f... [2]: https://github.com/calcom/cal.com/blob/main/packages/features/ee/LICENSE https://github.com/calcom/cal.com/blob/main/packages/feature... [3]: https://github.com/PostHog/posthog/blob/master/ee/LICENSE https://github.com/PostHog/posthog/blob/master/ee/LICENSE [4]: https://github.com/sidekiq/sidekiq/blob/main/COMM-LICENSE.txt https://github.com/sidekiq/sidekiq/blob/main/COMM-LICENSE.tx...
Lutger 2y ago
I disagree. For an open core product the core is actually open source. You can fork it, change it, distribute it. It may have an OSI approved license. You can't do that with a source available product. Furthermore, you can't even talk about the open core as a part of the closed source product, because the open core application is invariably a whole in and of itself. You could theoretically fork it, improve on it and it could have a life on its own as a 'fully' open source product. You can even make it incompatible with the closed version.
- ezekg 2y ago
  > You can fork it, change it, distribute it. It may have an OSI approved license. You can't do that with a source available product. Small correction: under popular source-available licenses like the FSL, BUSL, and ELv2, you can fork, modify, and redistribute. These licenses are usually just concerned with cloud competition, which is none of those things. You can still fork, modify, and redistribute your changes, with no copy-left strings. Still not Open Source like AGPL, but just wanted to clarify. :)
  - Lutger 2y ago
    True, I'm not sure I would say these are source-available, but I'm a bit out of touch regarding the jargon around these clauses that guard against cloud competition. There's a big difference between 'you can look at the source but not use this product in the way it is intended if you make money by doing so' (production use), and 'you can use the source in any way you like, also for production, but not to compete with us'. I've always understood 'source-available' to mean the former because it used to be like that, and the latter to be a slightly restrictive version of open source. Historically, the latter variant also emerged out of competition with the big clouds (mostly AWS), from projects that used to be truly open source, whereas a lot of what I think are source-available licenses come from vendors that were fully closed before or would be if there was no demand to see the source (for example, for security purposes).
madeofpalk 2y ago
They're explicitly not conflating the two. They say they have a closed source hosted offering, and an open source self-hosted offering. It's fair to call the overall approach something like 'open core' or 'source available', but when you offer the open core under a license like AGPL, it think it's pretty hard to claim that isn't open source.
- zeeg 2y ago
  When you offer a subset of the product as open, and a subset as not open, its not open source. Pretty simple math for me. This is not a comment on "which" OSI license they used for the open part, but I will not support people calling Open Core broadly Open Source, as its not.
  - madeofpalk 2y ago
    There's two things. One is open source, the other is not. I don't think it's that underhanded.

by zeeg 2y ago

unclad5968 2y ago

Open core and open source are orthogonal. Open core is a description of what part is open source. Just because the entirety isnt open source doesn't mean the part that is somehow isn't. At least that's the idea OP is trying to communicate, which makes sense to me.

yawnxyz 2y ago
I think the author did a great job communicating that some parts of software are fully open, and a few other pieces of code / repost are not. I like this way better than software with complicated licensing schemes, where you can only use certain packages on Wednesdays.

danenania 2y ago

I would argue that they are not in any way exclusive of each other or opposed to each other. An open source project can be built upon and extended by anyone, and that includes its creators. We don’t say that an open source project is diminished because some third party productizes it and makes money. PostgreSQL is not diminished by neon or rds. No, we continue to judge the project on its own merits. If it continues to offer value, to be compelling, well-supported, and stack up well against alternatives, then we keep using it. We don’t think “it doesn’t have all the features of rds, so screw postgres”. If the commercial side of the project takes away from the oss side and the oss project goes downhill as a result, then that certainly is a frustrating and disappointing outcome. But when both sides are thriving, it’s a fantastic win-win. The maintainers get to focus their full attention and passion on the project. The community gets better and better software. And people who are willing to pay for advanced or niche use cases get their problems solved too. Summing up, the problem is not with the whole model of open core, but with specific projects and companies that get it wrong. There’s no fundamental reason why the oss side and the product side have to be at odds. It’s just freemium, and there are countless successful and beloved freemium products out there who figured out how to get the balance right.

zeeg 2y ago
Postgres is not operated by the same people as Neon or Amazon, thats a fundamental difference. I was also not suggesting commercial cannot benefit Open Source (and would in fact quite the opposite). In general I was not commenting if they're opposed, but suggesting an Open Core project is Open Source is not truthful. "Core" is a meaningless term, and if we suggest any Open Core project is Open Source, I can easily academically argue that the majority of businesses are Open Core, thus Open Source, and we'd all agree that's not true. This project is Open Core, and thats fine, but Open Core is not inherently Open Source, and if we're going to care about that term in some contexts (e.g. with Fair Source) we need to care about it in all contexts.
- nikita 2y ago
  At neon we only worry about hyperscalers particularly Amazon. But they already have Aurora so we just open source everything under Apache 2.0 Being open is extremely important to us to build trust and we had this since day 1. VCs are fine with it because monetization is all cloud
- ezekg 2y ago
  I'm not sure I personally agree with this, and I'm not 100% sure the developer community at-large does either... Let's take a few examples, which I've shared elsewhere in similar discussions: - GitLab: Open Source or Open Core? Most would say open source, but (I assume) you would argue open core [0]. - Plausible: Open Source or Open Core? They say open source, but it's actually open core [1]. - Cal.com: Open Source or Open Core? They say open source, but once again, open core [2]. - Posthog: Open Source or Open Core? They say open source, but actually open core [3]. - Sidekiq: Open Source or Open Core? Open... core [4]. Yet, every dev I know would consider these projects Open Source... and yet also Open Core. So there's a disconnect somewhere. Under this mindset, very few open source startups are actually open source, yet everybody says they are? I'm not trying to argue either way; I'm trying to point out a real disconnect. Is everybody just open-washing? Why's that allowed? [0]: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/blob/master/ee/LICENSE?ref_type=heads https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/blob/master/ee/LICENS... [1]: https://github.com/plausible/analytics/blob/2dd2f058d1dcae6f0913157235bada5dae102b61/extra/lib/license.ex https://github.com/plausible/analytics/blob/2dd2f058d1dcae6f... [2]: https://github.com/calcom/cal.com/blob/main/packages/features/ee/LICENSE https://github.com/calcom/cal.com/blob/main/packages/feature... [3]: https://github.com/PostHog/posthog/blob/master/ee/LICENSE https://github.com/PostHog/posthog/blob/master/ee/LICENSE [4]: https://github.com/sidekiq/sidekiq/blob/main/COMM-LICENSE.txt https://github.com/sidekiq/sidekiq/blob/main/COMM-LICENSE.tx...

Lutger 2y ago

I disagree. For an open core product the core is actually open source. You can fork it, change it, distribute it. It may have an OSI approved license. You can't do that with a source available product. Furthermore, you can't even talk about the open core as a part of the closed source product, because the open core application is invariably a whole in and of itself. You could theoretically fork it, improve on it and it could have a life on its own as a 'fully' open source product. You can even make it incompatible with the closed version.

ezekg 2y ago
> You can fork it, change it, distribute it. It may have an OSI approved license. You can't do that with a source available product. Small correction: under popular source-available licenses like the FSL, BUSL, and ELv2, you can fork, modify, and redistribute. These licenses are usually just concerned with cloud competition, which is none of those things. You can still fork, modify, and redistribute your changes, with no copy-left strings. Still not Open Source like AGPL, but just wanted to clarify. :)
- Lutger 2y ago
  True, I'm not sure I would say these are source-available, but I'm a bit out of touch regarding the jargon around these clauses that guard against cloud competition. There's a big difference between 'you can look at the source but not use this product in the way it is intended if you make money by doing so' (production use), and 'you can use the source in any way you like, also for production, but not to compete with us'. I've always understood 'source-available' to mean the former because it used to be like that, and the latter to be a slightly restrictive version of open source. Historically, the latter variant also emerged out of competition with the big clouds (mostly AWS), from projects that used to be truly open source, whereas a lot of what I think are source-available licenses come from vendors that were fully closed before or would be if there was no demand to see the source (for example, for security purposes).

madeofpalk 2y ago

They're explicitly not conflating the two. They say they have a closed source hosted offering, and an open source self-hosted offering. It's fair to call the overall approach something like 'open core' or 'source available', but when you offer the open core under a license like AGPL, it think it's pretty hard to claim that isn't open source.

zeeg 2y ago
When you offer a subset of the product as open, and a subset as not open, its not open source. Pretty simple math for me. This is not a comment on "which" OSI license they used for the open part, but I will not support people calling Open Core broadly Open Source, as its not.
- madeofpalk 2y ago
  There's two things. One is open source, the other is not. I don't think it's that underhanded.