
Ask HN: More open than open source products - glapark
We are planning to start a business in the near future around a product (a data warehouse system) that we have been building over the years. Our product builds on an Apache-licensed open source project by replacing its core component with a proprietary engine.<p>I would like to ask HN about the licensing model that we are considering. Tentatively we call it as &#x27;more open than open source products&#x27; because our product is not entirely open source, but practically it is more open than typical open source products.<p>A typical (commencial) open source product has by definition an open source repository, but its enterprise features are usually closed source. This implies that even if a user has purchased a license for the enterprise features, he&#x2F;she still cannot rebuild the product after modifying&#x2F;extending&#x2F;fixing the code in the open source repository. In fact, there is no guarantee that the same open source repository is used in building the product.<p>In our case, we provide the binary distribution of the engine and everything else so that the user can rebuild the product, including all the enterprise features. For example, a user can modify&#x2F;extend&#x2F;fix the code in the open source repository and immediately rebuild his&#x2F;her own version. If the user needs an extension to the proprietary engine (which we believe will rarely occur), we implement the extension at no charge. So, the user should trust a small core of the product (less than 5%) without access to the source code.<p>So, do you agree that this strategy deserves to be called &#x27;more open than open source products&#x27;? Thanks!
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mtmail
> the user should trust a small core of the product [...] without access to
> the source code.

That's not open source then. You're watering down the meaning of open source
for marketing.

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glapark
I guess my question was a bit unclear. We state upfront that our product is
not open source because it is shipped with a proprietary part. It just builds
on an open-source project.

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ocdtrekkie
If any part of the code is not visible to your users/customers, it's not as
open as open source. Your solution sounds, in fact, less open than "Commons
Clause" type products which fail open source definitions because they restrict
commercial usage without a license, but all of the software is still visible.

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verdverm
You may be cherry picking open source examples to support your hypothesis.
There are a number of open source projects with all code available and
enterprise support.

