[eclark]

One of the things that's often lost in these debates is how the current open-source company structure encourages keeping the core open source as an unusable mess.

If a company comes and gives away its core product (Nginx, Hadoop, etc.), at some point, there's a need for $$ by the developers of that core software. The core product doesn't make revenue. So, the company has to create additional software for its revenue stream.

From then on, the developers of the core open-source project are incentivized to keep a dual class of solutions. That is, the developer's livelihood depends on no one making the core open source so easy to use that the additional software stops paying the bills.

A time-bound open-source clause ensures that everyone wants the best software. Yes, it means that users have less freedom than open-source users for a while. I think that's a great long-term trade-off for the users and the developers.