>
you were still not fully in control and someone else exploits the economic value without investingO'Sassy came up recently in one of the forums I lurk in [0], and as discussed there, I tend to agree with Adam Jacob (SystemInit) and others that FSL is definitely one way out but doesn't totally solve the commercialization aspect, because the code & all that IP is still readily available.
Adam, in this talk [1], argues that like RedHat (and unlike Canonical), Open Source businesses must learn to separate source license from distribution license and if they do so, the money is there to be made (in a b2b setting, at least).
> What I have found interesting in the years since is that many companies are wrestling with the same problem, but feel that the two year head start the FSL gives is too aggressive.
... if the companies conflate Open Source and business models, rather it being merely a Go-To-Market (like open core).
Especially true for dev/infra upstarts competing with incumbents (PostHog v Amplitude; GitLab v GitHub [2]), and lately for AI labs (DeepSeek/Qwen/Llama v GPT/Gemini/Claude). In a role reversal, BigTech also uses Open Source to commodotize its competition's advantages (Android v iOS; k8s v Swarm; Firefox/Chrome v IE) [3].
[0] https://forum.fossunited.org/t/6878
[1] https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/watch?v=rmhYHzJpkuo / Summary: https://gemini.google.com/share/e21cd1bacff6 (mirror: https://archive.vn/Jzhk3)
[2]
https://www.heavybit.com/library/video/commercial-open-sourc... / https://archive.vn/jQh27
[3] https://gwern.net/complement / https://archive.vn/QITxC
O'Sassy came up recently in one of the forums I lurk in [0], and as discussed there, I tend to agree with Adam Jacob (SystemInit) and others that FSL is definitely one way out but doesn't totally solve the commercialization aspect, because the code & all that IP is still readily available.
Adam, in this talk [1], argues that like RedHat (and unlike Canonical), Open Source businesses must learn to separate source license from distribution license and if they do so, the money is there to be made (in a b2b setting, at least).
> What I have found interesting in the years since is that many companies are wrestling with the same problem, but feel that the two year head start the FSL gives is too aggressive.
... if the companies conflate Open Source and business models, rather it being merely a Go-To-Market (like open core).
Especially true for dev/infra upstarts competing with incumbents (PostHog v Amplitude; GitLab v GitHub [2]), and lately for AI labs (DeepSeek/Qwen/Llama v GPT/Gemini/Claude). In a role reversal, BigTech also uses Open Source to commodotize its competition's advantages (Android v iOS; k8s v Swarm; Firefox/Chrome v IE) [3].
[0] https://forum.fossunited.org/t/6878
[1] https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/watch?v=rmhYHzJpkuo / Summary: https://gemini.google.com/share/e21cd1bacff6 (mirror: https://archive.vn/Jzhk3)
[2] https://www.heavybit.com/library/video/commercial-open-sourc... / https://archive.vn/jQh27
[3] https://gwern.net/complement / https://archive.vn/QITxC