| Exactly, this is the main reason. The most successful OSS business model is the service model. Release your core product as OSS, and build the best commercial SaaS around it. The author is wrong when they say: > Some enterprises make open source projects then provide cloud services. [...] But, regarding this business model, it is weak because it is vulnerable to the other services like AWS providing the open source software as a service, and actually that is happening a lot. Licenses like the AGPL level the playing field, so any competitors must also publish their changes to your software. The crucial aspect, then, is to make your SaaS objectively the best on the market, which should be easier for you, since you're the primary expert of your software. It also drives innovation by keeping you on your toes to always innovate and improve both the core and SaaS around it. You can also go the Redis and Nginx way and use a separate commercial license, but this is a murky legal topic. The important part of this open core model is to truly offer a compelling OSS product. Don't try to swindle users with crippleware, nagware, or prioritize business features over OSS ones. Give the best support you can, have great documentation, and make the OSS tool easy to use, with clear market advantage over the competition. Then your SaaS offering should be the icing on the cake that includes premium features that are mostly relevant for businesses. This is how you attract those huge corporate contracts. The main issue with mold is that a service can't be easily built around it, and that it's a very niche and technical tool. The product needs to be something that's appealing to a large audience. Even if it's a developer tool, an improved linker is not something many developers will flock to. The author is clearly smart and talented. But this product failing to be monetized is not related to OSS business models. Monetizing OSS is more difficult, sure, but there are many companies that have done it successfully. I'd suggest looking into what they've done differently. |