This started as a tweet but I don't want to lose it. I don't think this path is good or bad but once you reach step 2 (source available) the product isn't Open Source.
An interesting path for some database companies ...
- Start as Open Source per the OSD
- Open Source is a great way to get users.
- Change to source available & managed DBaaS
- Managed DBaaS is the best way to monetize the project.
- Making the control plane source available or not sharing it is unlikely to upset the community. Making the data plane source available will make the community unhappy.
- Change to some source available
- By some source available I mean not publishing source code for new features. Why share the secret sauce? Besides, now that you are have a DBaaS it is easy to launch new features without ever making them available (as open or non-open source).
- By now the part of the community that would be unhappy about this change has moved on so maybe it isn't a big deal. But some source available isn't that different from closed source.
- Add a DeWitt Clause
- This will make me unhappy or at least unwilling to help find perf bugs in your product.
Are DeWitt clauses still happening? Mentally I've had that in my "interesting history" bucket but hadn't heard of repeats so I was optimistically hoping it was just history by this point.
ReplyDeleteYes, now we get them from both database & cloud vendors.
Deletehttp://smalldatum.blogspot.com/2021/11/dewitt-clause-vs-public-cloud.html