2little_time

I think you're overestimating outside contributions to these types of projects. In my experience, they are typically minuscule, and mutually beneficial relationships when they do occur.

In my experience its the opposite. Companies form around the business plan of exploiting FOSS by hosting, solicit buckets of VC money, and give nothing back. It's completely unsustainable.

It's totally rational to create a license model that prevents hosting to third parties, but still allows end users to adopt the technology without paying. As has been pointed out elsewhere, that may not be right for all OS projects, but it should be an option.

Why would we want to force a company like Mango to go proprietary? There is a virtuous cycle at work when companies build business models that enable them to stick around and continue to make significant community contributions as Mango has done. The cloud has enabled bad actors to cut off the air supply of contributors. If you care about open source, you should care about the ability for companies to build business models around it that are benevolent to individual users, but don't let parasites suck the life blood out of contributing organizations.