| > "Are there examples of companies adopting this model?" Many examples across the industry: - Autodesk AutoCAD (closed) + Plugins/Addons (many open) - MS Windows (closed) + Many 3rd party programs (open) - Github (closed) + Github Actions (open) - Npm (closed) + Npm modules (mostly open) > "What are the potential benefits or pitfalls?" Benefits: - Harder to replicate, the company gets to keep the "secret sauce" a secret - Opening up a way to "extend" the platform means 3rd party developers add value to your system - The core isn't open, so less effort is required to maintain compare to OpenSource Pitfalls: - Closed-source is hard to verify, company is essentially saying "trust me bro" - Less innovation, as user's can't contribute to the core > "How does it impact community engagement and software adoption?" There's hardcore FOSS advocates that will hate anything not fully open. But a business has to make money and protect it's IP, having a "closed core" is one way to do that and ensure a sustainable business model. Another approach is the opposite, open-core + closed-premium-addons. An example of this is "React Admin" - Open Core -> https://github.com/marmelab/react-admin - Premium Modules Offering -> https://react-admin-ee.marmelab.com/ |