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by ezekg 645 days ago
> Sidekiq is actually how I think the world should work: its open source, and then they sell Sidekiq Pro. One is Open Source, one isnt. The issue is most people don't operate that way.

I guess this is where I get hung up on this topic. To me, there's no real distinction between Sidekiq's open-source core and proprietary features vs GitLab's. One has their proprietary code closed-source, while the other has it source-available in a monorepo. Functionally though, I don't see the real distinction. If Sidekiq can call itself Open Source by you, then why can't GitLab? They're both doing the same thing in the end, if you really reduce it down to its core (pun intended?).

I think we had a similar discussion before Fair Source launched i.r.t. ELv2 sharing some similarities here. I argued ELv2's license keys are yet another way of accomplishing the same thing, just differently: separating proprietary code from the core (ignoring the non-compete for the sake of this conversation).