If a company's survival is threatened by people using its open-source software, then maybe it shouldn't be open source. Open source software (to me) says I should be able use the software for any purpose, including commercial ones.
That isn't really the case here. It didn't start with a company. The company came along independently, effectively took control of an open source project that was already well established. They found that support alone wasn't enough to be profitable on and have been lashing out at the community that built around the original project, including independent opensource clients.
It's not that the company shouldn't have the code as open source. The company shouldn't exist in the first place and we're all suffering for it.
I agree. It seems that "open core"[1] is a failed experiment. I'm hopeful the idea will be replaced either by governments being smarter about the computers, or companies agreeing to sponsor foundations, or... something. But clearly taking venture investment to build OSS and turn it into a profitable enterprise is an idea that has been thoroughly shown to be flawed.
[1] aptly named if you think about the nuclear power analogy :)
It’s the entire premise of public goods, and the sustainable funding model for that would be through government funding or funding of open source foundations like the CNCF. For example, the IETF standards body is founded by the global charitable organization the Internet Society. How do we continue to build on this public goods funding model for projects like this?
> seems that "open core"[1] is a failed experiment.
I don't think the jury is out. If you look at nginx, you won't see a lot of complains over nginx plus. The nginx brand still has a lot of goodwill and a few open source projects seem to be peacefully building upon it without any issue.
