[weare138]

I'm not sure what the overall point here is. The headline and article are framed in a way that makes it seem switching from GPLv3 was the catalyst for increased profitability but this is never clarified or quantified:

Two years later, Sid at Open Core Ventures (OCV) contacted me about creating a company, building on the features and functionality of authentik. It was a dream opportunity: work full time on my hobby project and make 25% more in the process. But I had to let go of the GPL license.

It seems the investors stipulated the license change to secure funding versus the change itself resulting in increased profitability. And the justification seems based on speculation about marketability:

The drawback of building commercially on top of open source software using GPL is that the copyleft aspect can put some people off. Not every person or business wants to have to expose their code for every minor change or bug fix they may add, and they will sooner find a competitor with a more permissive license than adopt your software. This is obviously not ideal when you’re trying to get traction and grow a business.

OCV proposed we switch back to MIT.

Obviously something like the MIT license is more attractive to corporations. Now they can just steal all your hard work, integrate your code into their commercial product and not even have to pay or so much as credit you now. I'm sorry, it sounds you may have just been hustled out of your app.

[HWR_14]

It sounds like he was paid, and gets to work on his app. It may not be maximizing the value, but it seems to be similar to accepting a job at a company. He has steady income instead of long term rights.

Perfectly reasonable choice. So would putting a second license for paying customers as an available choice.