> open source projects eventually need a path to monetization
I guess I'm curious if I'm understanding what you mean here, because it seems like there's a huge number of counterexamples. GNU coreutils. The linux kernel. FreeBSD. NFS and iSCSI drivers for either of those kernels. Cgroups in the Linux kernel.
If anything, it seems strange to expect to be able to monetize free-as-in-freedom software. GNU freedom number 0 is "The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose". I don't see anything in there about "except for business purposes", or anything in there about "except for businesses I think can afford to pay me". It seems like a lot of these "open core" cloud companies just have a fundamental misunderstanding about what free software is.
Which isn't to say I have anything against people choosing to monetize their software. I couldn't afford to give all my work away for free, which is why I don't do that. However, I don't feel a lot of sympathy to people who surely use tons of actual libre software without paying for it, when someone uses their libre software without paying.
I think, if anything, in this age of AI coding we should see a resurgence in true open-source projects where people are writing code how they feel like writing it and tossing it out into the world. The quality will be a mixed bag! and that's okay. No warranty expressed or implied. As the quality rises and the cost of AI coding drops - and it will, this phase of $500/mo for Cursor is not going to last - I think we'll see plenty more open source projects that embody the spirit you're talking about.
The trick here is that people may not want to be coding MinIO. It's like... just not that fun of a thing to work on, compared to something more visible, more elevator-pitchy, more sexy. You spend all your spare time donating your labour to a project that... serves files? I the lowly devops bow before you and thank you for your beautiful contribution, but I the person meeting you at a party wonder why you do this in particular with your spare time instead of, well, so many other things.
I've never understood it, but then, that's why I'm not a famous open-source dev, right?
Yeah, that's why I said maybe I'm misunderstanding OP. If that's what OP meant by "monetization" then sure, monetization is great.
Companies pay their employees to work on Linux because it's valuable to them. Intel wants their hardware well supported. Facebook wants their servers running fast. It's an ecosystem built around free-as-in-freedom software, where a lot of people get paid to make the software better, and everyone can use it for free-as-in-beer
Compare that to the "open core" model where a company generally offers a limited gratis version of their product, but is really organized to funnel leads into their paid offering.
The latter is fine, but I don't really consider it some kind of charity or public service. It's just a company that's decided on a very radical marketing strategy.
You would be incorrect, LWN tracks statistics about contributor employers for every Linux kernel release and their latest post about that says that "(None)" (ie unpaid contributions) beat a number of large companies, including RedHat by the lines changed metric, or SUSE by the changesets metric.
Definitely individual can start with their own reason. It is questionable whether they can make contributions which scope would be a quarter of the work including design or even larger.
Other than a few popular libraries, I'm unaware of any major open source project that isn't primarily supported by corporate employees working on it as part of their day job.
I guess I'm curious if I'm understanding what you mean here, because it seems like there's a huge number of counterexamples. GNU coreutils. The linux kernel. FreeBSD. NFS and iSCSI drivers for either of those kernels. Cgroups in the Linux kernel.
If anything, it seems strange to expect to be able to monetize free-as-in-freedom software. GNU freedom number 0 is "The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose". I don't see anything in there about "except for business purposes", or anything in there about "except for businesses I think can afford to pay me". It seems like a lot of these "open core" cloud companies just have a fundamental misunderstanding about what free software is.
Which isn't to say I have anything against people choosing to monetize their software. I couldn't afford to give all my work away for free, which is why I don't do that. However, I don't feel a lot of sympathy to people who surely use tons of actual libre software without paying for it, when someone uses their libre software without paying.