The Slur “Open Core”: Toward More Diligent Analysis

“I certainly deserve some of the blame, and for that I certainly
apologize: the phrase “Open Coreâ€
has apparently become a slur word, used by those who wish to
discredit the position of someone else without presenting facts.
I’ve done my best when using the term to also give facts that
backed up the claim, but even so, I finally abandoned the term back
in November 2010, and I hope you will too.

“The story, from my point of view, began seventeen months ago,
when I felt that “Open Core†was a
definable term and that behavior was a dangerous practice. I gave
it the clear definition that I felt reflected problematic behavior,
as I wrote at the time:

“Like most buzzwords, Open Core has no real agreed-upon meaning.
I’m using it to describe a business model whereby some
middleware-ish system is released by a single, for-profit entity
copyright holder, who requires copyright-assigned changes back to
the company, and that company sells proprietary add-ons and
applications that use the framework.”

Complete
Story