Everyone loves open source! The ability to full audit and modify the code as well as extend the program to do what you want is incredible. But even as a non-programmer, you often reap the benefits of open source in that you know a program is not ripping you off or doing anything malicious.
With that said, there is a problem with open source and that is money. Open source is not profitable and is not designed to be so. Open source is designed with communities in mind, not companies so attempting to make a livable wage from open source is a foolish endeavour... except that some people think they have found a way, open core.
What is Open Core
Open core is a subset of proprietary software which states that the "core" is designed to be free of charge and open source (usually under a strict copyleft license) and the components which may be useful for a company to have access to (LDAP, "power user" features, reliable backups, etc) are available in a paid, closed source, proprietary offering.
I strongly dislike this method of earning money from open source and believe that it is counter productive in most situations. The major problems are as such, in order of increasing importance.
- Companies deserve to have power over software just the same any other users
- Some restricted features are useful for regular users also
- Having a paid proprietary version inherently incentivises sabotaging the effort made by the community
Companies Deserve Open Source
It's extremely confusing to me to see this selection of software which seems to want to exclude companies from participating in open source. I suppose the logic is that they ought to earn money back from their software and companies have the deepest pockets. While wanting to be paid is not unreasonable itself, selling a closed product is not a reasonable alternative.
Several projects which are fully open source make money simply because they demand users of the service do so, and most are happy to oblige. One such example is Sourcehut which does not provide a "free" plan, only a paid plan. But the source code for Sourcehut is still there if you want to make your own instance.
Even ignoring Sourcehut however, there are several ways to earn money through open source which have been proven to work but people do not consider them for one reason or another. All of the following methods have worked in the past:
- Asking for donations in the software
- Being contracted to write open source software
- Selling exceptions to copyleft licenses
- Selling support
Restricting useful features
Some features are useful for everyone but are only made available in the closed source edition which you have to pay money for. This is something that is truly a pity.
The most common feature to recieve some type of restriction is LDAP, LDAP is typically used by buisnesses for Single Sign On. SSO is extremely important as otherwise, managing passwords can quickly become unmaintainable. But SSO is also convenient for home labs or larger open source projects.
But this is not even limited to things that enterprise will use, it often directly applies to directly useful features for things such as backups, basic preferences, basic origanization features, logging, etc. These are things which benefit everyone, not just companies, they should not be restricted.
Sabatoging the Community Edition
Following up directly from the previous section, what does it mean when the closed source edition gets a feature that the community wants? Well it means that the feature cannot be implemented in the community edition unless the company responsible has an interest in losing money. In effect, open core is neutered software by design, it does not let the community have control which I think is problem.
Community editions are extremely harmful precisely because they are NOT for the community. When the limiation in your model fundementally impacts how you contribute to open source I feel like that is a problem.
Conclusion
Overall, while open core is a better model than a fully proprietary application, it is certainly a flawed model which ultimately does not do much in the way of contribution to open source. I think whenever possible, a fully open source alternative should be used as opposed to "community" editions.