There is this constant discussion about Open Core vs Open Source vs Proprietary Software , Fauxpen Source, Open Source Business models etc.. you probably know all the usual suspects involved, first up lets agree that nobody will ever agree on what…

In the end, I believe the market will determine whether vendors and other users of open source software are being true to free and open source software and its licensing and communities in both letter and spirit. What happens when a company comes out with something it calls open source? One of my first questions is what license? For this, we can thank the OSI and a widely-accepted, standard definition of open source. However, to apply a similar definition to particular vendors or business models may serve to limit the business models or vendors that are considered open source or that rely on open source. I believe that open source software developers, and increasingly users both large and small, are well aware of what open source is supposed to be — freedom, flexibility, lower cost, customizable, etc. As we remind open source vendors when we warn against canceling out open source advantages, these groups are usually quite active and vocal, and are capable on their own of determining which players are for real in open source, and which are not.

JL

This debate wouldn’t be happening so often if few people cared, so apparently they really do. The people that benefit from blurring the line are going to be happy to have the debate go away, because the line stays blurred. The people that benefit from hilighting the differences between open core and fully open source software are going to want to keep the subject up until more folks are educated on the differences.

To say “let’s stop talking about it” is to tell Coke and Pepsi to stop having advertising, ’cause everyone already knows whether they like one more than the other. That point-of-view forgets that the likely outcome if one of them stopped advertising is that in 20 years they’d be as well known as RC.

Educating the market about the differences is and I expect will always be important.

Let’s move on. Customers aren’t stupid. They know what they want. And they can determine if something is open enough for them, and how it’s open and how it’s closed.