Not new
|
| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| r_a_trip Apr 16, 2009 4:57 AM EDT |
Some open source purists see this as undermining the purpose of open source, but open core proponents say it's the key to a new business model. The business model isn't new. This is known as crippleware, a business tactic often employed by shareware. Give the end user a version with reduced functionality in the hope they will go for the revenue generating full version. In the case of "Open Core", depending on the licenses used, this model might not work. Since the core is modifiable and distributable under traditional licensing, anyone interested in it can fork the project and add the "enterprise features" themselves, creating a competitor to the original. "Open Core" relies on the assumption that the duplication of effort is disincentive enough to keep the closed version safe. Since GNU/Linux is the fruit of a massive duplication of effort, this might spell trouble for "Open Core". Since the brunt of the work is already done and available, it is just duplicating the missing bits if they are universally wanted. I can see "Open Core" working in niche markets, where only a small group has a need for specialist functions, but no incentive to write it themselves. In that case, the "Open Core" services the needs of the majority, while the closed version caters exclusively to the niche. |
| dinotrac Apr 16, 2009 5:18 AM EDT |
Crippleware is too harsh a term. Crippleware as most of us have encountered it in the Windows world is not very useful. Some of this so-called "Open Core" stuff is actually useful in the free rendition, and, as you pointed out, source available if you want to add your own features. A better test is the license -- does it restrict your ability to modify and use that open core? A truly free license would let you modify, use, and distribute, which is how vtiger, a fork of sugarcrm, came about. I don't know if any of the open core projects use an actual free license for their core as that would allow the situaiton where they compete with their own software, but I haven't investigated that. |
| Sander_Marechal Apr 16, 2009 6:05 AM EDT |
@Dino: SugarCRM's community edition is GPLv3, so that's a truly free license. The pro and enterprise editions are under a proprietary license. |
| dinotrac Apr 16, 2009 11:08 AM EDT |
Thanks, Sander. I would think a reasonably featureful GPL'd core would not qualify as crippleware. |
| Bob_Robertson Apr 16, 2009 12:56 PM EDT |
VirtualBox has a GPL'd version, even included in the Debian archives. It doesn't do USB. Considering the functionality of USB, I'd say "crippleware" isn't being insulting. It is crippled, deliberately. |
| Sander_Marechal Apr 16, 2009 2:30 PM EDT |
Quoting:I would think a reasonably featureful GPL'd core would not qualify as crippleware. People have already written extensions to SugarCRM that adds enterprise and pro versions to the community editions, like team security. But there's a far bigger problem with "open core" software like SugarCRM: The quality sucks. And it shows. Think about what makes open source software high quality. It's the open development process make possible by the open license. But that doesn't happen with "open core" software. Go take a look at the SugarCRM website. There's no public source code repository because there can't be. The pro and enterprise versions would be in the same repository. There is no developer mailinglist. No developer community to speak of(*). No peer review and public peer review is what makes open source quality shine. Instead, in the "open core" model the focus is the same as in the closed source world: features over quality. And you can see that too in SugarCRM. Every version has a ton of new features and their bugs database is pouring over with many bugs that have been sitting unsolved for years. They have to focus on the features because not only do they have to "out-feature" the competition but also the developers extending the open core version. And they have to do it without external developers as I explained above. So, the open core model is an even bigger features-and-bloat ratrace that the closed source model is. It is possible to do open core development in a different way that SugarCRM is doing, but you still won't get rid of the problems. For example, you could split out the pro/enterprise stuff in separate packages, plugins or applications so that you at least can open up your repository to outside developers. But then the internal company developers will have to play a frantic game of catch-up with those split-off packages to keep them working on the much faster moving open core. Personally I think open core is doomed except in a few niches (MySQL comes to mind). Yes you have the source, but the quality is just as low if not lower that closed source products. There won't be any time for code quality because if the internal developers aren't in a feature war with the external developers, they will have to play catch-up to them. (*) There is a large developer community around SugarCRM extensions and plugins using the public API's, but there are no external developers working on core SugarCRM code. |
Posting in this forum is limited to members of the group: [ForumMods, SITEADMINS, MEMBERS.]
Becoming a member of LXer is easy and free. Join Us!