Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

When 'open core' projects reject contributions for competing with the EE

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 202 posts

Re: When 'open core' projects reject contributions for competing with the EE

#21

Post by mhx1138 »

Sytten wrote: post #14

How dare them wanting to make money. Seriously this is fine, if you are not happy fork it and maintain it yourself. AFAIK this is the whole point of open core. What you are asking here is that business to support code for free that reduces their revenue. Code is a liability most of the time not an asset.

I think the problem is the terminology. People grew up when open source software was also free. Open core uses the same terminology, although products are only open and free in a limited way. I don’t want to assume intend, but many users are mislead that way.

Re: When 'open core' projects reject contributions for competing with the EE

#22

Post by johannes1234321 »

madeofpalk wrote: post #11

One lesson from this is to not contribute a 'major feature' to an open source project without a signal that it would actually be accepted. Even if the feature doesn't conflict with enterprise/monetisation, the feature could just be against the goals of ideals of the maintainers, of whom the project is up to. Open source is not a mandate that the maintainers must accept every contribution. The author should consider w…

And even for a "true" open source project and even if the feature matches the aims of the project maintainers may still not accept it, as they don't want to commit to the maintenance work.

They can't rely on the contributor to be quick to respond to issues and flaws fall back on them.

Re: When 'open core' projects reject contributions for competing with the EE

#23

Post by pydry »

nrabulinski wrote: post #2

Situations like this one make a company show whether they really are open source or only do so for marketability and to artificially appear more trustworthy. And sadly too often it comes out that it’s the latter

Situations like this one bring out the difference between people who want open source to be supported and those who just want a freebee.

Re: When 'open core' projects reject contributions for competing with the EE

#24

Post by hannob »

byefruit wrote: post #12

I don't see the problem here? It's their project and they can choose what they want to maintain. If you disagree, it's perfectly fine to fork the project and implement this but then you bear the cost of maintenance. These kinds of open source projects need to be sustainable, you can't expect the companies producing them to continue maintaining and investing in them without some sustainable way of doing it. I don't se…

Without putting blame on anyone, this does show a fundamental issue with the open core model. It is built on the premise that your "open" product will not be as good as possible, so you can still have the higher priced "enterprise" product.

I think it's fair to point that out. Usually, you expect that developers want to create software that is "as good as possible". They may have a different idea what exactly "good" means, but you usually don't expect that an open source project will actively want to be worse than it could be. But "open core" is exactly that: It's a software trying to be worse than it could be.

Re: When 'open core' projects reject contributions for competing with the EE

#25

Post by pydry »

mhx1138 wrote: post #21
Sytten wrote: post #14

How dare them wanting to make money. Seriously this is fine, if you are not happy fork it and maintain it yourself. AFAIK this is the whole point of open core. What you are asking here is that business to support code for free that reduces their revenue. Code is a liability most of the time not an asset.

I think the problem is the terminology. People grew up when open source software was also free. Open core uses the same terminology, although products are only open and free in a limited way. I don’t want to assume intend, but many users are mislead that way.

I think the problem is entitlement more than terminology.

Re: When 'open core' projects reject contributions for competing with the EE

#26

Post by manojlds »

nrabulinski wrote: post #2

Situations like this one make a company show whether they really are open source or only do so for marketability and to artificially appear more trustworthy. And sadly too often it comes out that it’s the latter

That's the definition of Open Core. You cannot say open core and also say they didn't accept the PR for a feature that is there in EE.

Re: When 'open core' projects reject contributions for competing with the EE

#28

Post by kuschku »

prabhatsharma wrote: post #18

They need to be able to differentiate core from Enterprise. If they can't make money in a sustainable way the open core company will die and so will the open source project. Those who fail to see this reality are only hurting themselves. This is perfectly fine.

If the community is able to implement new features better, faster, and more open than the company, then the company probably should be pushed out of the project.

If that has to happen via forking and directly competing with them, so be it.

Re: When 'open core' projects reject contributions for competing with the EE

#29

Post by vextea »

Sytten wrote: post #14

How dare them wanting to make money. Seriously this is fine, if you are not happy fork it and maintain it yourself. AFAIK this is the whole point of open core. What you are asking here is that business to support code for free that reduces their revenue. Code is a liability most of the time not an asset.

Its the combination of disappointment that it wasn't merged and that it took several months to get back on a significant contribution (whilst adding their own version into their enterprise offering in the meantime). Of course there's going to be some emotions, and rightfully so.

Re: When 'open core' projects reject contributions for competing with the EE

#30

Post by blueaquilae »

Sytten wrote: post #14

How dare them wanting to make money. Seriously this is fine, if you are not happy fork it and maintain it yourself. AFAIK this is the whole point of open core. What you are asking here is that business to support code for free that reduces their revenue. Code is a liability most of the time not an asset.

They just let the guy create the feature and it will be integrated to the EE.
Post reply on HN