Lately there have been quite a number of discussions around the objectives and definitions of the “Open Core” model. Aaron Fulkerson for example explained how Open Core helped him to improve his business model. Matthew Aslett clarified the definition of the model. Open Core described the strategy to keep the central elements of a product open (in the sense of Open Source) and sell additional components/features/elements commercially. Companies adopting this model are MindTouch, MySQL, JasperSoft and others . The definition is debated, but you get the point.
Now, why should an Enterprise care about this?
Here are the key advantages of the Open Core model taking an Enterprise perspective:

• The core of the product is completely Open Source and valuable because it’s the same that is used in the extended product. It’s therefore a good basis for a community to work on
• The core of the product is useful in itself and not castrated. For basic users it’s therefore a good product to work with
• Extensions are not Open Source but over time become typically part of the new core, so a continuous flow of new features can be expected also in the core.
• The product is architected for extensibility and integration typically and allows for other extensions (from the community) to be added.

So, communities should actually love this. And if communities love it, there’s a positive dynamic that is the basis of rapid extensions, code quality improvements and broad input for the requirement gathering. So the basis is set to have an active community gathered and this is good for the Enterprise. As it has been discussed before (link to blog - do enterprise actually care about open source), Enterprises more often than not, actually will buy the subscription for the bigger and commercial version of the product. So the licensing model of the core may not be an issue. But of course it is an issue for the community and the product owner. Communities love Apache, BSD and Mozilla licenses, product vendors prefer the more restrictive GPL approach that protects their commercial interest better. The Enterprise will not care as long as its interests are not restricted by the applied licenses.
So, for an Enterprise, the Open Core model may be better than other models if they help to produce larger communities, faster development/extensions and better quality. That’s what matters, besides low cost of product/technology ownership and flexibility in its use.

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This entry was posted by Bruno von Rotz on Monday, July 13th, 2009 at 6:00 am and is filed under Enterprise open source, Licensing, Open Source projects. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.