Re:When 'open core' projects reject contributions for compet...
by klabb3 on Sunday March 10, 2024 @12:23PM
(#39660367)
Agreed. For the open core model to work in practice, there needs to be clarity in what’s open and what’s off the table. The problem is that open core appears to be, most of the time, not a serious commitment. At least I don’t trust “self-hostable” at face value anymore if there’s a company behind it. In the worst case, it’s bait and switch.
There’s still value-add in eg source-available products. So there’s a meaningful spectrum of openness, assuming the decision makers are willing to explain their commitment upfront and stand by it.
You're completely right, though obviously they didn't lock it because it was "too heated" despite what they wrote. They locked it because people were writing negative comments about them.
Frankly I think they're totally justified in this. They need to eat. The things they should have done differently are:
1. Confront the issue at the start rather than waiting months and just hoping it would go away.
2. Less bullshit corporate speak response. They could have been honest that they didn't want to give this away for free otherwise they'd go out of business, and that it's open source so the author is free to maintain their patch/fork if they want. Most reasonable people would understand this. "It doesn't align with our vision" is just vomit-inducing weaseling.