- Most open source projects have trouble raising enough funds to ensure that the maintainers can live off the project.
- Some companies that have businesses built around open source products are adopting controversial licensing schemes - in order to raise funds
- For example, MongoDB created a new license in 2018 that restricts how other companies can use its MongoDB Community Server.
Attempts at solving this problem
- Some companies have also come up with innovative open source software licenses - Fair Source License, Commons Clause License, etc.
- There have been innovative business models adopted by some companies.
- For example: Red Hat makes money by selling support for its open source projects.
- But, this model is not feasible for every open source project.
- A company called Tidelift aims to sell support through a single subscription fee for a package of open source projects.
Sources