[jondubois]

Yes I think it depends heavily on the type of open source project and it shouldn't be frowned upon for certain kinds of projects.

I run an open source project which is technical and is designed to integrate into other systems; it's ideal for fast growing companies and large organizations that have money; because of this, inbound leads for consulting, technical support, sponsorship, partnership and contract work trickle in on their own. So in my case, a very permissive MIT license makes sense even financially.

If you have a relatively simple product which is more like an external stand-alone tool (not designed to be integrated into proprietary systems at the API level), then it will be impossible to monetise it through consulting or sponsorship.

Also, other kinds of open source projects which are difficult to monetize are those which implement established and well understood industry standards.

Adhering to standards helps with adoption and greatly increases your project's chance of success but it's not creating any new markets; you're tapping into an existing user base and competing with other implementers in a race-to-the-bottom in terms of performance, efficiency and usability and it's hard to capture any value out of that.

[antirez]

Interesting observations, thank you.