> We’re building an open-source chat that works

As long as you have Pricing on your website your product is not open source in the true spirit of open sourceness. It is open code for sure but it is a business and so incentive is to run it like a business which will conflate with how the project is used by the community.

Btw, there is nothing wrong with that but let's be honest here if you get this funded (perhaps it already is) who are you going to align your mission with - the open source community or shareholders? I don't think you can do both. Especially if a strong competitor comes along that simply deploys the same version of the product. We have seen this story many times before.

Now, this is completely different from let's say Onyx being an enterprise search product where you create a community-driven version. You might say that fundamentally it is the same code but the way it is presented is different. Nobody will think this is open-source but more of "the source is available" if you want to check.

I thought perhaps it will benefit to share this prospective here if it helps at all.

Btw, I hear good things about Onyx and I have heard that some enterprises are already using it - the open-source version.

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martypitt 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> As long as you have Pricing on your website your product is not open source in the true spirit of open sourceness.

It's an MIT license. That IS open source.

If they have a commercial strategy - that's a GoodThing. It means they have a viable strategy for staying in business, and keeping the project maintained.

MIT == OpenSource. Pricing == Sustainable. That's a horse worth backing IMO.

	▲	WhitneyLand 8 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Exactly, if everything looked too good to be true and there was no transparency or hint of a business model it’s actually less attractive for some who value predictability.
	▲	_pdp_ 6 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		You are not wrong but in most cases this is a trojan horse. It has the characteristics of a classic rugpullware. At the top level looks like open source but it is not really because parts (the most useful ones) of the project are not. Imagine if python was open source but the core libraries where not. You wont call this open source in the true spirit of open source. You could make the argument that at least it is sustainable because they a have now a business model. It doesn't add up. I prefer more of a honest take on software. There is nothing wrong to make money while contributing back to the community in some meaningful way or by simply being transparent. In fact this is the best kind and there are plenty of good examples. All I am saying is that when I see such projects I tend to think that in most cases they are dishonest to themselves or their communities or both.
	▲	zb3 7 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> It's an MIT license. That IS open source. The source is available and you can do much with it, but the incentive is that this alone should not be enough.

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Weves 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Great to hear that you've heard good things. And yea we have many large (>1k+) teams using just the open-source version (something we love to see).

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wg0 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Actually - if you have bunch of VCs on your back, you can't even align with your very own user base let alone any other wider community.