July 14, 2010
"I actually quite like the model of a free* version of software and then a paid-for pro version with extra coolness. It’s a model that works well. But when you combine that with Open Source, it becomes a little more dubious (maybe) because there’s the possibility that you use the name of Open Source but create a system where in practice, people can’t meaningfully participate and it’s primarily a hook into the paid version."

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From Slashdot comment on ‘SugarCRM 6 Released, But Is It Open Source?’ (* I think he meant free as in free beer).

Very insightful and worth reading comment that sums up all the downsides I’ve seen in open core based products.

You may argue that the open core model helps the company use an open source development model while keep making money in the old-fashioned-way just selling licenses, but it won’t happen: there won’t be an open source community, because it would be enemy of your business model (which is selling licenses!).

by jjm on 10:51am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZPorZymJMgb
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Filed under: open core SugarCRM open source community 
July 11, 2010
Deltacloud Moved from Red Hat to ASF Incubator

I read from David Lutterkort blog that Deltacloud Core goes to the Incubator.

Deltacloud it’s an abstraction layer that provides an uniform API to deal with different cloud providers, supporting EC2, GoGrind, OpenNebula, RackSpace, RimuHosting, etc; and obviously RHEV-M, because Deltacloud was initiated by Red Hat as open source project.

According to Lutterkort, a lot of people liked the idea of a OSS cloud API, but they weren’t happy with it being a Red Hat project. To fix that, Deltacloud it’s now an ASF Incubator project, and in the future most likely will become a full Apache Software Foundation project.

With all the recent open core debate, it’s very interesting this move from Red Hat: you don’t like us to have control over a 100% open source project, so we’re donating it to ASF. Brilliant.

by jjm on 11:26am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZPorZylXpjt
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(Notes: 1)
  
Filed under: API Apache Software Foundation Deltacloud Open Source Red Hat cloud computing Open Core 
July 1, 2010
"In short, open core is a model where a company produces a product that is mostly available as open source, but then there are some closed source components around the open source “core”. The point of the model is that it is supposedly easier to sell closed source than open source."

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From Open core is not open source.

I agree that the open core model makes you produce more close source software, because the open core it’s based in selling closed source software and not open source.

Henrik Hingo uses Red Hat and Canonical as a good examples of open source based companies that are doing it well, but I’m not that sure.

The open core advocates say that selling closed source it’s good, because that allows them to make more open source software. It makes sense, to some extent, and we’ve seen Canonical use the same argument to support some unpopular decisions (even the closed source of their Ubuntu One services).

You know, because a company needs to make money to hire developers to work on open source. It’s scary, isn’t it?

by jjm on 10:59pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZPorZyjFbfG
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Filed under: Open Source open core Canonical closed source