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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, a

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...
  - zeeg 2y ago
    This is the problem with the definition. If the product is trurly open source, call it that. If its not, thats ok, but don't. Core has no real definition. I definitely would never call GitLab Open Source. I can't comment as much on the others. Sidekiq is actually how I think the world should work: its open source, and then they sell Sidekiq Pro. One is Open Source, one isnt. The issue is most people don't operate that way. GitLab Community Edition is Open Source, GitLab is not. Cal.com isn't open source, but is the Cal product? I'm not sure. Given I started Sentry I can at least use it as an analogy. Early days Sentry was open source, but getsentry.com was not (which was our billing infra). No one would have called Sentry Open Core, because no part of "Sentry" was closed source. That's not true for most Open Core.
- andrewf 2y ago
  There is a distinct Postgres entity which doesn't upsell, that's true. But looking at https://www.postgresql.org/community/contributors/ https://www.postgresql.org/community/contributors/ it seems like most of the actual people are employed to work on Postgres by companies who sell, among other things, proprietary Postgres derivatives and tooling. Maybe if one company came to dominate the list we'd be in trouble..

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...
- zeeg 2y ago
  This is the problem with the definition. If the product is trurly open source, call it that. If its not, thats ok, but don't. Core has no real definition. I definitely would never call GitLab Open Source. I can't comment as much on the others. Sidekiq is actually how I think the world should work: its open source, and then they sell Sidekiq Pro. One is Open Source, one isnt. The issue is most people don't operate that way. GitLab Community Edition is Open Source, GitLab is not. Cal.com isn't open source, but is the Cal product? I'm not sure. Given I started Sentry I can at least use it as an analogy. Early days Sentry was open source, but getsentry.com was not (which was our billing infra). No one would have called Sentry Open Core, because no part of "Sentry" was closed source. That's not true for most Open Core.
andrewf 2y ago
There is a distinct Postgres entity which doesn't upsell, that's true. But looking at https://www.postgresql.org/community/contributors/ https://www.postgresql.org/community/contributors/ it seems like most of the actual people are employed to work on Postgres by companies who sell, among other things, proprietary Postgres derivatives and tooling. Maybe if one company came to dominate the list we'd be in trouble..