This sucks. Why? Because having e.g. "Adaptive Multimedia Streaming" in the Pro version might mean that you won't get it in the open version since the professional product would lose it's edge. I would much rather see a model where features from the professional edition propagate to the open one after authors earn enough from subscriptions.
Not to mention: If you get value from Adaptive Multimedia Streaming then pay for it. Why should they necessarily provide you value for free?
I'm personally getting tired of folks who ride the coat tails of "open source" because they simply read it as "I don't have to pay" rather than getting behind the ethos of what it's actually about. I don't know about your specific situation to say this is the case here, just venting on a pile of comments that are poo-pooing the fact these folks want to make some money from the MASSIVE value they are providing the world.
I'm personally getting tired of folks who ride the coat tails of "open source" because they simply read it as "I don't have to pay" rather than getting behind the ethos of what it's actually about.
What about the people who are fine with paying? Where can they get an open source version of Plus?
Pretty sure buying proprietary software is not part of the "ethos". Well, maybe of the open source ethos, but certainly not part of the Free Software one.
Valid point :-) I think they'd be wise to sell access to the source for more money again. Certainly lots of organizations are keen to access that for safety.
Well, they seem to have no stance on that - at least there's nothing on the page. So I tend to assume that pro features remain pro features.
Nobody is demanding that the nginx folks provide value for free. However, I see problems with their chosen business model. The separation of "open source" vs. "closed source" is ill defined. What happens for example if some other party implements a solution that provides the same functionality as a pro feature? Would they accept a PR for that and then provide it as part of the free version or would they just keep the pro-approved version and let the OS-version play catch up? Is it possible to patch the pro version as it is possible to patch the os version? Syslog logging requires source patches atm and it doesn't look like the patch will ever be accepted in the mainline. There's a legal question as well: From the changelog it seems as if other people contributed patches - the implied idea is that they provided patches to an OS project, did they sign a CLA that says they're transferring all rights to the nginx company?
Don't get me wrong: It's fair and square the authors want to make money of their project and they're certainly entitled to. I just see a bunch of issues cropping up.
As of writing, the Contributing page states:
"License
Submitting changes implies granting project a permission to use it under an appropriate license."[0] "license" links to [1] which states (in part):
" * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
* modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
* are met:
* 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
* notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
* 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
* notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
* documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
" followed by standard liability disclaimer.
There may well be a problem agreeing what "appropriate" means. There's an argument that given the link, appropriate could mean a license that allows redistribution in the same way as the current license - which would raise interesting questions for redistributing the nginx plus version.
Certainly it's not a simple assignation of copyright to NGINX. I can easily imagine a lawyer having a heart-attack when reading the original conditions of submitting.
That's my point: Without CLA there's enough wiggle room for several armies of lawyers to squeeze through and attack you like a flock of piranhas. The other problem is that contributors might feel cheated - the implied contract was that they contribute to an OS project, not help lift a commercial project off the ground. OTOH, I have no idea how big outside contribution was. It's certainly a little shaky with a lot of pitfalls and I certainly don't hope that anyone feels inclined to challenge the commercial version, but we've all seen how well that went with VLC and the app-store version :(
> I'm personally getting tired of folks who ride the coat tails of "open source"
Says the .NET developer with empty github and bitbucket accounts. Meanwhile, there are those of us who live and breathe open source software, building industry-transforming businesses around open source software and contributing to the open source ecosystem. Don't even try to pretend you are anything other than an outside observer.
Not to mention: If you get value from Adaptive Multimedia Streaming then pay for it. Why should they necessarily provide you value for free?
That argument applies to the software as a whole, not just to a particular feature, right? Isn't it just an argument against open source in general?
rather than getting behind the ethos of what it's actually about
What do you think is the ethos of what open source is actually about? I think part of it is indeed about sharing things with others for free, isn't it? If other parts of it are about the ability to see the code you're using, and make changes to it yourself -- you can't do that with the non-open-source part of this (or other) application either, right?
I don't have a definite opinion on the nginx model, whether or not it's good for the community, I don't really know. Certainly no developers are obligated to write open source ever, everyone can choose to write proprietary software whenever they want (and sometimes it's good for the community and sometimes it's not). But your argument is silly.
They are clearly shifting their priorities, which means that people building more open things can no longer rely on them participating. Instead, they have to treat them as a benevolent commercial entity dumping an open version their way.
> I would much rather see a model where features from the professional edition propagate to the open one after authors earn enough from subscriptions.
This wouldn't work. Paying corporations tend to be fairly conservative on the features they use, so it's not necessarily the new features that people are willing to pay for.
There's definitely some problems with this business model. On one hand, having a premium product means that Igor won't be contributing as much features to the open source version. On the other hand, it might discourage 3rd party developers from contributing features that are already covered by the premium product. There's probably some upsides as well, but it's certainly not without its issues.
Having a premium product could also mean that the open-source version grows faster.
Having stable revenue means the ability to spend 100% of the time working on the project (instead of it being a side project), and hire more full-time employees. It is possible that as a result both the pro and open-source versions improve faster than in an only-volunteer open-source project.
That's a good point. Although, so far, the project has evolved pretty well, so it doesn't seem to remedy a current problem.
An alternative strategy to ensure it to do so in the future, could be to build a team of open source contributors to take charge of the further development of the project. As a user, I would prefer this, as it doesn't have the inherent conflicts of interests that a premium/free model has.
