If you look up Frank Karlitschek and "I forked my own project and my own company", he's given this talk many, many times. As for it being the best of both worl

If you look up Frank Karlitschek and "I forked my own project and my own company", he's given this talk many, many times. As for it being the best of both worlds, it depends what best means. A company that wants to make a lot of money won't do well with this model. It's a slow growth model requiring a lot of hands on work that requires customers who are paying for features and custom installations. It's labor intensive work that's quite the opposite of the proprietary software model, which has traditionally had a lot in common with the publishing or entertainment industry. Write a book, get paid for it for years.