> you were still not fully in control and someone else exploits the economic value without investing

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

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zeeg 10 hours ago | parent [-]

The issue is these are mostly academic points of view. Sentry’s model on the FSL (and previously the BUSL) has shown to be working just fine at scale.

Whereas, for example, trademark protections have shown to fail easily.

So people can argue it doesn’t work, but so far we only have evidence to the contrary and Sentry is quite successful.

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ignoramous 7 hours ago | parent [-]

> So people can argue it doesn’t work, but so far we only have evidence to the contrary and Sentry is quite successful

So, RedHat has also been successful?

GP says that some companies don't find FSL aggressive enough, despite it having worked nicely for Sentry. And that's similar to the point Adam makes: That Open Source (per OSI not FSF) is a development model not a business model. Companies that don't want/need to prioritize collaboration tend to use FSL / BUSL / etc; but those licenses aren't really going to significantly change their development or business (other than prevent competition from using it as-is, but now the code is out there anyway [0][1]), and so they might as well go close source (and Lockdown the code, too).

> issue is these are mostly academic points of view

Both, commodotizing competition (through OSS) and using OSS as Go-To-Market aren't academic PoVs, I don't think.

[0] And trained on by LLMs, which makes cloning probably that much faster? https://x.com/paultoo/status/1999245292294803914 / https://archive.vn/kTiyZ

[1] Companies will deep pockets and technical expertise can/will anyway clone it: https://bcantrill.dtrace.org/2018/12/14/open-source-confront...

	▲	zeeg 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I'm not talking about RedHat, I'm talking about the perspective that "FSL / BUSL aren't effective enough". They solve the problem. O'saasy is just freeware at the end of the day, FSL creates more open source, and BUSL often has (though unfortunately the license doesnt require it). The idea that FSL ~= Closed Source is entirely wrong and misunderstands the value that an open distribution gives. We have 10s of thousands of customers that run Sentry self-hosted. We regularly get contributations back to our core service - both in code and (what we prefer) other artifacts like feedback. We were "Single Origin Open Source", which is extremely common whether people like to believe it or not. Its the entire premise of the sustainability issue in the industry. Thats not just an issue for commercial entities, its also most of the big open source software people rely on. In our case though we have a great business model that makes it entirely sustainable, and now have built a solid licensing mechanism around it that protects that, while ensuring our community is still successful. Ive written about a lot of these kinds of things: https://cra.mr/open-source-is-not-a-business-model https://cra.mr/open-source-and-a-healthy-dose-of-capitalism https://cra.mr/the-busl-factor These same issues around single origin open source are why we started the no-strings-attached funding mechanism via Open Source Pledge (https://opensourcepledge.com), why we push Fair Source (https://fair.io). Maybe others will find defensible models, but I'm skeptical. I also respect Adam, but last I understood it the model they were going after sounded pretty similar to trademark protection (which doesnt work).