Jeff Geerling: Corporate Open Source Is Dead
Corporate-backed open source projects are increasingly relicensing their code or adding restrictions, raising fears of “rug pulls” where companies close off community contributions once a project succeeds. Commenters debate whether permissive licenses unfairly enable large cloud providers and app vendors to profit from unpaid developer labor, versus the view that open source is fundamentally about user freedom, not creator income. Many conclude that if a business depends on capturing value from software, it should either use strong copyleft, dual licensing, or be openly proprietary from the start rather than relying on ambiguous “open core” models.
Title & Framing Issues
- Some discussion centers on how HN titles should mirror the article vs. strip author/site names, given blog title tags and page layout.
- Ambiguity over what “as posted on the blog” means when the author’s name appears in multiple places (site name, page header,
<title>).
Corporate Open Source & “Rug Pulls”
- Strong resentment toward companies that start under permissive/FOSS licenses, build community and mindshare, then switch to source-available / BSL-style licenses once adoption is high.
- Many see CLAs and copyright assignment as enabling later relicensing against contributor and user expectations.
- Others argue this is clearly disclosed in CLAs and contributors should read what they sign.
Licensing Philosophy: Permissive vs Copyleft vs Source-Available
- One camp defends permissive licenses as true to “open source” ideals; if you don’t want others to profit, use copyleft or go proprietary.
- Another camp views permissive licenses as a “trap” that feeds free labor into corporations; advocates AGPL or proprietary only.
- Debate over whether it’s morally acceptable for others to repackage and sell your permissively licensed work, and whether that can “ruin lives.”
- Some promote dual-licensing (e.g., AGPL + paid proprietary exceptions) as a pragmatic compromise; others see CLAs for this as weakening copyleft.
Business Models & Sustainability
- Widespread agreement that maintainers of critical OSS (e.g., compression, crypto, NTP) are underpaid and over-relied-on, creating security and burnout risks.
- Hyperscalers reselling OSS as services without funding maintainers is seen by many as exploiting a “broken social contract.”
- Suggested revenue models: paid support/LTS, enterprise plugins, dual-licensing, source-available with anti-SaaS clauses, or simply going proprietary.
- Example given of a small AGPL app sold directly to users that earns meaningful recurring revenue, showing one path that works at small scale.
Free Software Ideology vs Practical Open Source
- Some argue that free software is primarily about user ethics and freedom, not developer income; business concerns are secondary.
- Others counter that without viable compensation, fewer people can sustainably create and maintain OSS, making the model self-limiting.
Forks, Governance & Risk Monitoring
- Forks (e.g., alternatives to databases and infrastructure tools) are framed as evidence that restrictive relicensing doesn’t kill the software, only the original company’s community goodwill.
- A project tracking relicensing/CLA/DCO risks is highlighted as a way to help users choose projects less vulnerable to future rug pulls.