The issue, in my mind, if I was making a similar comment, is that projects seem draw the line in the wrong place for where "Enterprise" begins.

I suspect this person's fears may be similar. The issue isn't that they'll offer enterprise, the issue is that they'll carve up the non-enterprise version as a differentiator.

Inevitably, and I've seen this before, the non-enterprise version loses all steam because time and effort have to be focused on the enterprise customers, and feature parity can't be maintained because those differentiators have to show value in the enterprise offering.

Those OSS users who built the community and contributed to your product for years end up having been beta testers, unceremoniously ushered out to find an alternative.

Elastic for example made the mistake of making "secure" (by default) an "Enterprise" feature of Elastic Stack, then Amazon came along and ate their lunch.

For me, I've seen this enough not to worry; if they go "south" in this respect, there are alternatives; and failing that, there's the minimalist approach of plain git.

This is pretty much my sentiment as well. The problem is that the obscure integration problems are better solved by a system integrator if they are so bespoke they don't belong in the code base.

I've worked with enterprise customers before and yes it tend to be LDAP and active directory stuff they ask for in terms of features. I run my own LDAP, am I enterprise?

Further this undermines their argument. It comes off as "hey we want some of that pie". The alternative is the foundation route. Or just to start your own system integration business, not to muddy the lines.

So, yes, (to answer both followups here) - obviously there's a danger that the OSS version gets less time and attention, and in many cases it'll start prioritising actual customers (ie those paying money) over folks using the OSS version.

I certainly understand why those who are using software for free see this as the thin-edge-of-the-wedge, the start of the product morphing to something that is less free.

On the other hand, despite the health risks, eating is still enormously popular. Developers want to get paid, and so they tend to gravitate towards models that, well, earn money. OSS is great (I'm a fan) but it doesn't pay the bills. OSS should be what you do in your spare time, not your day job. If OSS is your day job then either you're lucky, and someone is funding it, or it's only a matter of time before you need to switch to a different day job.

Bottom line - if OSS doesn't sort out an actual funding model that works - if users (of the Libre version) aren't willing to pay real money, on a regular basis, en masse - then don't be surprised if the developers need to switch it up to earn a living.

There's this perception that "big companies" should just fund all OSS for everyone, but I'm saying that this can never work - that's pretty much exactly what "big companies" are set up not to do.

I understand all of this. I'm a software engineer myself, and FLOSS advocate.

The "complaint" is not that I don't understand _why_ this is happening, or even so much that it _is_ happening, but in my experience, this "commercialisation" of F/L/OSS is inevitably (I'd argue) net negative for the community built around it.

Even if the core product doesn't become "paid" and we don't have this issue of whether or not people _should_ have to pay to use it, the quality of the "core" or "community" product will fall, anything new or interesting will get pay-walled and updates/features will be few and far between.

I'd call this more lamentation of a loss than anything, Gitea isn't dead (yet) because of this, but I move forward cautiously to see what comes of it.

What would be really interesting, would be to revisit this discussion in a year, two, maybe more and see what became of it.

The problem is when any of the features the enterprise wants to / can buy is closed source and not available on the same terms as the rest of the project.

I'm not wanting to insult you here, so please read in that light. I'm not trying to be the dick here.

>> The problem

Problem to whom? Not the customer (the one paying the bills), not the developer (the one getting paid) but by "the rest" - the ones consuming but not contributing.

>> closed source

Unfortunately the term "open source" encompasses a group of freedoms - the lack of any of them leads us to the term "closed source". For some projects the freedom "removed" is the right to _distribute_ the proprietary source. In other words the source might be "open" in the sense that the customer has it, but it might be "closed" in the sense that they can't distribute it.

I'd suggest that the freedom-lost in the "can't distribute" model is a good compromise (developers wanting to get paid.) I'm less favourable to a "binary blob" model. Clearly in the abstract projects could go either way.

>> not available on the same terms

ie - for free. I hear you, but I feel like developers have a right to take their project in a paid direction if they want to. The demand that they continue the project forever for no return seems, well, unfair.

> ...but by "the rest" - the ones consuming but not contributing.

"contributing", when it relates to F/LOSS software, includes non-monetary activities, which you seem to be ignoring. Nevermind the fact that the so-called consumers are the whole reason why Gitea is in the position it is today. Without adoption, it would be a bunch of people making commits on an unknown codebase. Characterizing users as moochers is bad form, amd will not end well for Gitea, IMO.

> I feel like developers have a right to take their project in a paid direction if they want to.

The other side of the libre software coin is that the users have the right to fork the project and take it in a community-driven, non-profit direction if they want to.

>> includes non-monetary activities, which you seem to be ignoring.

sure. Except those non-monetary activities don't pay the bills. I suppose I kinda fell like they have value, but on the other hand the business has to pay bills and salaries first. If that isn't done then the non-monetary value is, well, meaningless.

And of course, if there are specific users who are contributing materially with code etc then nothing stops them from getting a gratis enterprise license.

I think it's also worth noting that the "community" consists of two groups - those that are contributing to the project, and, well (your word) the moochers. Yes, even quiet users have some "value" - but it's really tiny. The ones that are contributing code and so on, obviously they have real value.

I certainly don't want to minimise the value of active contributers, but at the same time I don't want to over-value the contribution of "n anonymous users". Yes, there's a business model built on acquiring some huge number of users, then selling them on to some big corporate (like GitHub did), but I'm no sure that's in play here.

>> Nevermind the fact that the so-called consumers are the whole reason why Gitea is in the position it is today.

I'm not sure they are so-called - they clearly are consumers. And that's great for a small fledgling company starting out. But there comes a point where the bottom line has to be fed, and they aren't the ones doing the feeding.

This is obviously not a new thing that Gitea invented, we've all seen this play out a million times with startups. It's all free all the time until the money runs out. Then something has to change to make it sustainable.

>> The other side of the libre software coin is that the users have the right to fork the project and take it in a community-driven, non-profit direction if they want to.

Of course yes. If there are some group of developers who want to work on features, they are of course most welcome to do so. That is quite literally the whole point of an Open Source license. But you say this like it's a bad thing? Like it would somehow hurt Gitea if this happened. I'm not sure that's the case. (you'd just have a new set of developers with the same financial problems, and Gitea would have gobbled up some Enterprise mind-share in the meantime.)

> Except those non-monetary activities don't pay the bills.

That is why the vast majority of free or open source projects are not businesses.

> And of course, if there are specific users who are contributing materially with code etc then nothing stops them from getting a gratis enterprise license.

This is one way to kill an open source project that is new to me!

> I'm not sure they are so-called - they clearly are consumers

They do more than that (in a power-law way): the evangelize, translate docs, file bug reports, donate, provide free support online, among other activities. Reducing a community to mere consumers is self-defeating.

> you'd just have a new set of developers with the same financial problems, and Gitea would have gobbled up some Enterprise mind-share in the meantime.

Ah, I see we have a fundamental philosophical difference. I don't believe that all open source projects have to be profitable enterprises - or even a full-time job for single maintainer. A lot - I dare say most - successful projects are volunteer-driven.

> Problem to whom?

The world, in my opinion (we all are being opinionated rather than right or wrong, here).

Like [almost?] everyone, I have ideas about what I think would constitute a better world. They include, within the realm of IT, a pretty much "IP" and DRM free society, open general purpose computing for all, and more truly free [as in freedom] and open source software.

I think that open core and enterprise service based models and their ilk make that world less likely. I'm not interested in finding ways to make more "silicon valley" companies profitable if they do so by making a world I don't like.