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Death of an open-source business model

joemorrison.medium.com

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Re: Death of an open-source business model

#41

Post by lock-free »

joejoebags wrote: post #28
lock-free wrote: post #15

In the back of the head this gives me an idea for a marketplace startup for software utilities but I know it's been tried before and died. I don't know how to align the incentives of creators to where we can make a marketplace where open source is lucrative by design. But I don't think it's impossible, just the social hurdles haven't been cleared yet. Not much technology to throw down on the problem.

You might be interested in Tidelift https://www.tidelift.com/

Not really what I'm thinking, I see these attempts at funding maintainers pop up each year and I think they all share the same problem and take the wrong approach.

Re: Death of an open-source business model

#42

Post by TAForObvReasons »

hannob wrote: post #27

I feel there's a few cases cited here to make a case that an entired business model is dying, but it doesn't look to me that this is an overall trend. You can't extrapolate from "5 projects didn't fare well with this, so it's not working". But there's more. I followed the MongoDB case a bit and it's not exactly how many make it sound like. MongoDB was doing fine as a company. It wasn't like they were unable to pay th…

Based on HN's cheerleading when some projects abandon open source (for example the top comment of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19488642 ), the overall trend may be the user base not caring about open source in the same way people cared 5-10 years ago

Re: Death of an open-source business model

#43

Post by thayne »

Redis is given as one of the examples of "open core" failing. But even if you treat the new Redis source available license as completely proprietary, Redis is still open core, since the core is still licensed with BSD 3-clause. It is just that some of the extensions that used to be open source are now proprietary.

Re: Death of an open-source business model

#44

Post by gumby »

hannob wrote: post #27

I feel there's a few cases cited here to make a case that an entired business model is dying, but it doesn't look to me that this is an overall trend. You can't extrapolate from "5 projects didn't fare well with this, so it's not working". But there's more. I followed the MongoDB case a bit and it's not exactly how many make it sound like. MongoDB was doing fine as a company. It wasn't like they were unable to pay th…

> It looked all more like investors created expectations of future revenue and they became cold feet if they could meet those expectations.

More likely MongoDB promised future revenue in order to attract those investors and then couldn’t figure out how to get there.

Re: Death of an open-source business model

#45

Post by JKCalhoun »

joejoebags wrote: post #32
hannob wrote: post #27

I feel there's a few cases cited here to make a case that an entired business model is dying, but it doesn't look to me that this is an overall trend. You can't extrapolate from "5 projects didn't fare well with this, so it's not working". But there's more. I followed the MongoDB case a bit and it's not exactly how many make it sound like. MongoDB was doing fine as a company. It wasn't like they were unable to pay th…

I wrote it last night; I didn't have time to research every "open core" company I could think of to figure out a chronology of their licensing strategy. I decided to publish it based on a limited number of case studies to gin up discussion and hopefully learn from other people about counter-examples. Do you know of any?

I'm stupid in this space, but as an outsider, is this "the end of an era" because it looks like MapBox is simply pulling the tried and true "bait and switch" which has been around forever.

In that regard, "open core" (or open source for that matter) was never a business model — the business model always was bait and switch. Open was the bait.

But likely I have always been a little suspicious of "open source" and likely I am now over-simplifying.

Re: Death of an open-source business model

#46

Post by alexchamberlain »

john_cogs wrote: post #35
abetusk wrote: post #4

Mapbox releases Mapbox GL JS v2 under a proprietary license whereas v1 (presumably) was under an "open core" business model. (Mapbox v1 and v2 are graphics card enhanced mapping libraries?). The author of the article's thesis is that this is "an end of an era" of Open Core business models (putting core technology under a free/libre licensing and charging for extra proprietary features). I'm very curious as to what ot…

I work at GitLab. Our Open Core business model is part of our 3 year strategy [1] and something I consider one of our key strengths. As a member of the Community Relations team, I may be a bit biased. :) We acknowledge the risk of "Fork and Commoditize" [2] on our list of biggest risks but believe that risk is reduced because we're application software instead of infrastructure software. 1 - https://about.gitlab.com/…

* Probability is reduced; the impact is the same.

Re: Death of an open-source business model

#47

Post by zokier »

I'd say good riddance. Open core to me always felt more "openwashing" than honest attempt to build free software project/community. Part of the feeling arises from the fact that when teenager me first started learning about foss software, Linux, GNU etc one of the things that made such a great impression was that there was no feature gating, no "enterprise editions", nothing locked away. Instead I had all the power in the world on my fingertips. The idea of being built by hackers for hackers to fill their needs resonated to me a lot, not having marketing or product driven development but scratching your own itches. Open core fits very poorly to that worldview.

edit: This comment might have started out bit harsh, apologies. I did not mean to imply malice on the companies that tried to make open core work, but rather bit of naivete or misunderstanding regarding open source and building business around that.

Re: Death of an open-source business model

#50

Post by macjohnmcc »

zokier wrote: post #47

I'd say good riddance. Open core to me always felt more "openwashing" than honest attempt to build free software project/community. Part of the feeling arises from the fact that when teenager me first started learning about foss software, Linux, GNU etc one of the things that made such a great impression was that there was no feature gating, no "enterprise editions", nothing locked away. Instead I had all the power i…

Also commercial entities using these open source products for profit doesn't sound like it would fit either. A commercial entity is not a hacker.
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