Re:Open Source is not dead: On the recent demise of RethinkDB
by nickpsecurity on Monday October 17, 2016 @01:08PM
(#12726915)
The Burroughs MCP came with source with users allowed to submit updates to them for redistribution. So, the first, great mainframe for business operated under shared-source license. It became a multi-billion dollar company. They closed it off and pulled all kinds of schemes eventually. Now called Unisys.
I think a combo of paid with source and closed-source extensions can still get lots of success. We're already seeing it with enterprise editions for features that basically only enterprises use. That keeps them from crippling the main, OSS product which costs less. I also envision giving free licenses to people that contribute lots of code, docs, testing, etc. One way is to simply not charge businesses below a certain revenue amount or only to charge a support fee tied to cost of delivering support. As they grow, so does the software house like in the royalty model.
I think a combo of paid with source and closed-source extensions can still get lots of success. We're already seeing it with enterprise editions for features that basically only enterprises use. That keeps them from crippling the main, OSS product which costs less. I also envision giving free licenses to people that contribute lots of code, docs, testing, etc. One way is to simply not charge businesses below a certain revenue amount or only to charge a support fee tied to cost of delivering support. As they grow, so does the software house like in the royalty model.