I really chuckled about how the blog post opens with how great Rusts open-source ecosystem is, and ends with an "anyway, we made our software private and proprietary"
"We keep ScopeDB private and proprietary, while we actively get involved and contribute back to the open-source dependencies, open source common libraries when it’s suitable"
They say they do when suitable (never or rarely).
But that's fine as the licenses allow it. It feels like another company blogging about how great open source to get pr while close sourcing their product.
The older I get the more I understand why gpl variations are superior to bsd if you want to grow the software. Bsd are good for throw away code or standards you want others to adopt.
And contributing back is one of the approaches to maintaining open-source dependencies. I have described how to deal with OSS dependencies in [1] (yet to translate it :P).
This article is actually a translated one. In the original article[1], I talked about commercial open-source and how one can collaborate with the open-source community when running a software business.
This section is moved to the second-to-last section in the posted blog, including:
[QUOTE]
When you read The Cathedral & the Bazaar, for its Chapter 4, The Magic Cauldron, it writes:
> … the only rational reasons you might want them to be closed is if you want to sell the package to other people, or deny its use to competitors. [“Reasons for Closing Source”]
> Open source makes it rather difficult to capture direct sale value from software. [“Why Sale Value is Problematic”]
While the article focuses on when open-source is a good choice, these sentences imply that it’s reasonable to keep your commercial software private and proprietary.
We follow it and run a business to sustain the engineering effort. We keep ScopeDB private and proprietary, while we actively get involved and contribute back to the open-source dependencies, open source common libraries when it’s suitable, and maintain the open-source twin to share the engineering experience.
[QUOTE END]
I wrote other blogs to analyze open-source factors within commercial software[2][3][4][5], and I have practiced them in several companies as well as earned merits in open-source projects.
When you think about it, there are many developers working for their employers, and using open-source software in their $DAYJOB is a good motivation to contribute more (especially for distributed systems; individuals can seldomly need one). I know there is open-source developers who develop software that has nothing to do with their $DAYJOB. I'm maintaining projects that has nothing to do with my $DAYJOB also (check Apache Curator, the Java binding of Apache OpenDAL, and more).
> I really chuckled about how the blog post opens with how great Rusts open-source ecosystem is, and ends with an "anyway, we made our software private and proprietary"
I mean that's been the prevalent attitude for the entire history of open source. Its easy to laugh until someone replaces you.
