[josephjacks]

Hey, Tony. :) I believe that COSS companies are extremely successful when they are able to build large and successful positive-sum and inclusive ecosystems around their FOSS core (specifically, that core being FOSS licensed, not source-available license'd). My partner Heather Meeker has written most of these non-compete licenses. They are useful at the crust around the core, not in the core, IMHO.. if they are applied to the core, there is very little distinguishing it from freemium/proprietary which != FOSS. Also, many of the most successful COSS companies never raised a cent of VC to get to scale: Jetbrains, Liferay, Odoo, etc. and the ones that did raise a similar amount of money to get to scale did not really need it, they just accepted it along to way maybe to speed growth a bit, but their commercialization strategies were often working quite well and their customer acquisition costs highly efficient.

[verdverm]

Hi JJ.

Steph and I have been breaking things down from our chat, and basically came to the same conclusion, though often favoring closed source where one might GPL/NonC license that crust around the core. Also that outside investment is to add fuel to an existing fire, COSS or fully private makes less difference than showing you've built something people want.

Do you have any new videos or podcasts? Always love to hear your thoughts, you put things very succinctly!