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The incompatibility of open core and profit

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Re: The incompatibility of open core and profit

#41

Post by ilyt »

esperent wrote: post #12
dasil003 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but that read is a bit cynical. I think it's totally reasonable to create some tool that any college student or tinkerer can use to get a cool idea off the ground, but also want to get paid when it's leveraged to significant financial success. Pure open source is nice, but in practice it means corporate sponsorship or ramen lifestyle, both of which, it seems to me, have worse downsides than the loss of ideologic…

> Yes, but that read is a bit cynical Is it? I've found that all open core projects I've used over time gradually lock more and more features away with each update and usually end up being more expensive than the closed source alternative. The latest example is RocketChat which a year ago had a couple of features and one or two gentle reminders to upgrade to enterprise, but now it's getting really naggy. And when I d…

> The latest example is RocketChat which a year ago had a couple of features and one or two gentle reminders to upgrade to enterprise, but now it's getting really naggy. And when I did contact them for enterprise pricing, which is not clearly available, it ended up being way more than we could pay and a lot more than Slack (can't remember exactly now but something like $10/user if we included the bridges to WhatsApp and Messenger).

We had exact same experience with Mattermost. We needed only LDAP auth from enterprise side but it was good product so we were fine paying iirc $2.5/mo/user for it. They doubled the price ("we add more features that you don't use to this level, so pay us more"), we got pissed and our dev just whipped github-like auth page (OC version allows authenticating with gitlab) and we pointed it to that.

Now I see they doubled it again and at $10, when our O365 accounts cost $6.50/mo it would be impossible sell

Re: The incompatibility of open core and profit

#42

Post by ilyt »

judge2020 wrote: post #16
esperent wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, but that read is a bit cynical Is it? I've found that all open core projects I've used over time gradually lock more and more features away with each update and usually end up being more expensive than the closed source alternative. The latest example is RocketChat which a year ago had a couple of features and one or two gentle reminders to upgrade to enterprise, but now it's getting really naggy. And when I d…

Redis is technically open core, with Redis Enterprise supposedly gating 'simple' scaling, multi-tenancy, and a (I assume) plug-and-play k8s integration https://redis.io/docs/about/redis-enterprise/

I think OSS have kind of problem with "too good" software.

If your business is produce software and work as consulting company for it, software that is very good and easy to use is actively reducing your market, because frankly people don't need any help to use it.

Take ES for example. Running big-ish cluster isn't that hard with a bit of googling and experimenting, so there is little reason to ever bother with support contract.

Re: The incompatibility of open core and profit

#43

Post by judge2020 »

nonethewiser wrote: post #23
j6zauas4gz wrote: post #11

I might be willing to buy that open core/open source and the standard VC funded "startup" esq business model are incompatible. But I don't think open core and open source are incompatible with profit or with sustainable business models. Sure, the nature of open source might preclude you from breaking into the millions of dollars of revenue / funding (I dont buy that though, to be honest) but even if thats true those…

If your value can be completely replicated by cloning your repo and self hosting then I think that’s maximally useful for open source but leaves no reason for you to exist. Meanwhile if you can open source your software and protect your profits then your software isn’t actually that valuable. I suppose there may be some exceptions but generally speaking I think it’s an inverse relationship. And it’s basically the sam…

> It feels like we’re in denial about free software being free.

As always, it's free as in freedom, but also free as in your company taking a beer from the cold hands of the solo maintainer.

Re: The incompatibility of open core and profit

#44

Post by teddyh »

josephcsible wrote: post #18
Entinel wrote: post #9

There is no incompatibility between Open Core and profit. There is an incompability between FOSS and profit but the motives of "Open Core" are transparent and always have been. It's always been a marketing scheme to entice people into using the full product once your business scales and I don't see the problem with wanting people to buy-in if they are using in at that scale.. I also think the "solutions" presented he…

> There is an incompability between FOSS and profit Red Hat says hi.

They’re called “IBM” now.

Re: The incompatibility of open core and profit

#45

Post by jhugg »

josephcsible wrote: post #18
Entinel wrote: post #9

There is no incompatibility between Open Core and profit. There is an incompability between FOSS and profit but the motives of "Open Core" are transparent and always have been. It's always been a marketing scheme to entice people into using the full product once your business scales and I don't see the problem with wanting people to buy-in if they are using in at that scale.. I also think the "solutions" presented he…

> There is an incompability between FOSS and profit Red Hat says hi.

There are a small handful of exceptions. Many were in the exactly the right place at the right time. That’s not a repeatable strategy. I wouldn’t start RedHat today.

Re: The incompatibility of open core and profit

#46

Post by throw_human »

sneak wrote: post #34
throw_human wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best I've been able to come up is that freedom 0 applies only to humans. If a non-human entity is running the software, viz. some sort of corporation, then it is not allowed to without a (expensive) license. I want to make the world better for people, not for Amazon.

Corporations don't exist. Amazon is made of people: shareholders and staff. Software doesn't run itself and corporations don't run software: human beings do. There's no such thing as a non-human entity running software.

>Corporations don't exist. Amazon is made of people: shareholders and staff.

>Software doesn't run itself and corporations don't run software: human beings do.

>There's no such thing as a non-human entity running software.

People don't exist they are made up of cells.

Humans don't run themselves: cells do.

There is no such thing as a non-cell entity running humans.

Re: The incompatibility of open core and profit

#47

Post by teddyh »

kgodey wrote: post #27

I've been thinking about this problem a lot, since I'm trying to figure out how to sustain our open source project. Our project is complex enough that it requires a few full-time people to maintain it. Our current funding comes from a grant, which is not sustainable in the long term. I'm philosophically opposed to open core because tying revenue to proprietary features seems like the wrong incentive structure, I can'…

> I've been thinking about this problem a lot, since I'm trying to figure out how to sustain our open source project.

It’s worrying, and maybe telling, that you don’t mention whom the project benefits. Who are the people who want this project to exist? Those are the people who would be willing to pay to ensure its continued existence and maintenance. Exactly what form that takes is mostly psychological, and will therefore depend on what types of other expenses those people are used to paying, and how they usually pay them.

Re: The incompatibility of open core and profit

#48

Post by throw_human »

mattigames wrote: post #38
sneak wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporations don't exist. Amazon is made of people: shareholders and staff. Software doesn't run itself and corporations don't run software: human beings do. There's no such thing as a non-human entity running software.

From his/her wording I assume they mean some unspecified threshold before a group of people is considered a corporation. From my limited understanding I think it could be useful to have a license that is only for free for organizations made of (for example) 10 people or less.

The license is only granted to natural born persons.

The only people who don't grasp this simple fact are the ones who have never worked in a corporation. They very much own and run things legally. Which is why when the liquidation man comes a knocking you don't lose your shirt for owning stock in Enron.

Re: The incompatibility of open core and profit

#49

Post by judge2020 »

wokwokwok wrote: post #31
armchairhacker wrote: post #20

Open core is the only way to really monetize open-source software. You see this issue with core-js, you see it with mold linker, which went "open core" in a desperate attempt to get more funding. At the end of the day we must remember that people need to make money and most simply don't have the time or desire to make open-source for free. And until more people actually get adequately paid for making open-source, ope…

> until more people actually get adequately paid for making open-source, open core should not only be tolerated but encouraged Come on, did you actually read the article or skim the first paragraphs? The authors point is that open core is not a model that enables small time developers to fund their projects. …it’s a deceptive, deliberate marketing strategy funded by venture capital to run a loss leader and capture ma…

The author almost unravels their own argument at the end:

> I just believe that more businesses can find ways to make open source contributions core to their business, without resorting to the typical open core strategy. There’s a lot of nuance in creating better aligned incentives.

Their problem really is just with _this particular behavioral pattern of VC-raising startups whose software is open-core_, which is why they criticize "The Open Core Strategy". They are not against open-core in itself, just that it is incompatible with the profit incentives these companies have, where it quite literally turns into calculating ROI for "how many new users will see this new feature in the Core product and then be converted into paid users within 6 months".

Also, based only off of the description for shipyard they mention here, it sounds like you either can't execute low code templates offline, or can't fork the project without recreating both the UI and the execution logic, both of which seem to violate the spirit of free software.

Re: The incompatibility of open core and profit

#50

Post by galaxyLogic »

Open Core basically means try-before-you-buy. That is a great deal for the customer, they will know for free whether they can actually benefit from the product. If they can it means it brings them monetary value. If they get "hooked" into that monetary value, it is not a problem.

It is good that people realize Open Core is part of marketing not some highly ethical save the rainforests project. If they are companies they have a duty to know what they are buying, Caveat Emptor.

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