Tarus Balog is on a one-man campaign against open-core licensing, or really, any company that produces both open source and closed source software:
Of course, in the open core model there must be “commercially-available extensions” in order to get companies to sign a “commercial license”. Why is this? Because the open core product has been intentionally hobbled to force companies to buy the closed software product in order to get it to do the things that customers need it to do, and thus to generate revenue for the software company.
I find this article interesting, because he seems to have taken the opposite tack from me in terms of deciding what causes the most dilution of an open source product.
I’ve always figured that requiring copyright attribution is a greater sin than providing commercial add-ons, with the strong assumption that the product completely stands on its own without those add-ons.
As far as I see it, requiring copyright attribution restricts the developer community, while providing commercial add-ons doesn’t restrict anyone anywhere, it just says that some of my code isn’t free.
Sure, I can see if I produce a crippled, useless free product that *requires* the commercial add-ons that it’d be evil, but if the OSS portions actually do kick ass on their own, then what’s the issue?
To me, community is the big differentiator. If a given OSS project doesn’t actually care enough about a community, then open core is basically a sales tool. But if it *really* cares about community, then open core always has to worry that the community can thrive without the commercial portions. I basically think of this as requiring that the open core company always open source anything that’s required by the project or that’s essentially commoditized, but it leaves plenty of room for using a commercial license on those projects that not everyone needs, and especially on those areas that are clearly not commoditized and not many people need.
I think Tarus has a special perspective on OSS success because he’s in what amounts to an entirely commoditized space – there are so many monitoring tools with such a similar feature set that it’s crazy to think anyone would choose anything but an entirely open source solution. In less commoditized spaces, it likely doesn’t make quite as much sense to stick to entirely open licenses.
This bit in particular sticks out:
If you like your users why not provide all of the features as open source? Red Hat does it, JBoss does it, OpenNMS does it. The answer will always be that their business model can’t survive unless they sell closed source software. In that aspect, I can see little difference between open core companies and Microsoft.
Well, I can tell you that the reason that Reductive Labs is considering producing commercial software is that we can’t afford to produce much more software unless someone pays for the development, and at this point, we have a thriving, healthy community that largely gets huge benefit from Puppet without ever needing help from us. So, our options are to grow so slowly that all of the interesting opportunities pass us by, or to start producing software that allows us to, at the least, recoup our development costs.
I agree with Tarus’s basic sentiment: A lot of these open core companies aren’t actually producing open source software that you could reasonably use on its own. But that doesn’t invalidate the model, in my opinion.
His model of providing supported binaries, as Red Hat and others do, only works for those who use compiled languages, which means it’s right out for us. Maybe we should stick some C in there, just to make it easier to charge for support?
So what do you think: Is it a greater sin to only accept patches to your product if the contributor is willing to assign copyright to your commercial company, or to produce some closed-source code?
But you have to look on the other side of the plate, that every project and every work it depends from the budget and the sources they have. Specially because of that many of them decide to go copyright otherwise than going opensource.
Assigning copyright can be a problem in that it precludes many people who work at other commercial companies from contributing code. cheers!
Sounds very interesting.
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dont knw if u can call digsby as opensource but theirs is the worst strategy. install spyware on the comp any using system resources to conduct research without the permission of the user
ddfg
I find this article interesting, because he seems to have taken the opposite tack from me in terms of deciding what causes the most dilution of an open source product.
In the open source area innovation is as much about the business model as about the products. IMHO, purist approach is simplistic since it rejects experimentation.
healthy community that largely gets huge benefit from Puppet without ever needing help from us. So, our options are to grow so slowly that all of the interesting opportunities pass us by, or to start producing software that allows us to, at the least, recoup our development costs.
I think it's a shame for many developers who feel that they need to give tings away because no one wants to pay money for anything any more. Most people don't even donate any money to the developer.
That would be one sweet concert that I really wish I could be a part of.
u.hjg
It all about letting people sample it before they buy. i know its hard to do but you have too.
Thanks for the tip.However for me the best way to earn money is through blogging.
They probably need development questions by answering the developers who work with parent company
its exactly right that open sourse is free way to make money,thanks for this post.
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That would be one sweet concert that I really wish I could be a part of.
So, our options are to grow so slowly that all of the interesting opportunities pass us by, or to start producing software that allows us to, at the least, recoup our development costs.
That Sounds interesting, I agree with you.Please keep at your good work, I would come back often.*
thanks for the post!!…interesting!
totally agree with you mate, cheers!
the idea to make money is nice.always like to read new ideas to make money
The best way to make money online is still blogging. I get great results from it all the time with different niches. The more blogs you have, the more money you will make online.
Its always good to learn tips like you share for blog posting. As I just started posting comments for blog and facing problem of lots of rejections. I think your suggestion would be helpful for me. I will let you know if its work for me too.
I agree with your evaluation about Tarus's market. It appears that once a technology goes open-source, and the open-source implementation is good enough, the commercial products are either forced to change their model or they have to over-market their products. In monitoring, there are a bejillion solutions and they're all pretty much the same. Differentiation is style-based, not usually functionality.
Your work is fantastic looking, the site is a snap to navigate… Consider me a fan!
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I also think that companies can charge for addons.They have to make a living.The problem is too many companies try to be OSS but they do not actually realize that you need to eat and pay bills.Commercial support is also an option like you said,but not even canonical is making a profit with that.It is not difficult to monetize OSS but is definitely not easy.
As far as I see it, requiring copyright attribution restricts the developer community, while providing commercial add-ons doesn’t restrict anyone anywhere, it just says that some of my code isn’t free.