> The guys who license kdb/q probably make more money today from service/consulting agreements and not the software licenses. So it's to their benefit to go open (a la MongoDB)

It's a public company, so you can go check:

https://www.firstderivatives.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/...

Software earns more than consulting, and the profit is better too.

Just because Mongo isn't good enough to make money on its own merits doesn't mean anything.

> Also, if you're building a tech stack from scratch - you want it to be "clean". You don't want to muddy it with expensive software licenses.

I've been in probably a hundred funding and acquisition meetings at this point in my life, and this has literally never come up.