Open source companies going private: A timeline

Open source may be the building blocks of modern software, but companies that build businesses behind open source software face an endless struggle between pleasing their community and ensuring that other people do not abuse the rights granted by the license.

Many companies have launched with high open-source ambitions, but remain tight-lipped when it comes to commercialization. It’s all about protecting the bottom line, especially for investors (public or private) to enjoy.

But it can be difficult to keep tabs on all these changes, and also distinguish those who have left open source and those who have sought sanctuary behind a permissive (but still open) license (e.g. Element preferences and Grafana has done it in the last few years).

As such, TechCrunch has compiled a list of open source companies that have changed over the past decade.

Kind of Moves (2013)

Flexible Type developed an open source version (called MTOS) of its web publishing software in 2007 under “copyleft” GPL Open source license, a move that brought it closer to WordPress. Such permissions grant some rights, but specify that all derivative works be released under the same license. In any case, the movement continued until 2013, when Movable Type’s he is the owner he left the item open, thinking it “frustrated the establishment” of commercial models.

“The group has not grown because of MTOS, and we have not seen download numbers that are bigger than our paid versions of Movable Type, so at this point it does not make sense to continue to store and distribute the growing content. little work,” the company he wrote at the time.

SugarCRM (2014)

Originally founded in 2004, it is a customer relationship management (CRM) software developer. The price of SugarCRM was announced in 2014 that it will no longer offer an open source “community edition,” knowing that its two main markets – developers and first-time CRM users looking for a low-cost solution – were not well served by the product.

The company continued to support the final version (v6.5) of the open source interface for another four years, before pulling the plug. in 2018.

Redis (2018)

Redisthe developer of the popular database, has been transitioning from its open source roots since 2018, when it moved “Redis Modules” (eg. RediSearch) from open source AGPL The license for Apache 2.0 is “Commons Clause” additional (ie commercial restrictions). The the following yearRedis replaced the Commons Clause with its Redis Source Available License (The value of RSAL) who promised to preserve some rights, but with the usual restrictions on competing database services – such as those offered by companies such as AWS.

In many ways, this was the correction that was coming, as some companies later cited the “Amazon problem” as a reason to change their license. Earlier this year, Redis’ transition to the proprietary world ended, when it announced that his main program is changing from a BSD 3-Section license to install two licenses – RSAL or public server license (SSPL images).

MongoDB (2018)

In 2018, database company MongoDB he left from open source License of AGPL to SSPL. The reason? Yup: preventing cloud hyperscalers like AWS from selling their service model without compensation.

Winner (2018)

The “year that was” the license changer’s launch ended with Affiliatesa company that sells tools and business services around Apache Kafka, change Some of the features of its main platform from Apache 2.0 to the owners Confluent Community License.

This license contains an exclusive disclaimer, which prohibits any competitor from offering the Confluent products “as-is.”

Cockroach Labs (2019)

Cockroach LabsThe creator of the eponymous distributed SQL database called CockroachDBhas continued to disrupt its licensing culture.

In 2019, the founders of the company he announced that they are moving CockroachDB from the Apache 2.0 licensed license to the Business Source License (BUSL). Again, cloud hyperscalers such as AWS were the drivers of this change.

“We are seeing an increase in highly integrated providers taking advantage of their unique role in providing ‘as-a-service’ versions of OSS (open source software) products, and providing a superior user experience through their integration,” the founders wrote at the time.

Back in August, Cockroach Labs announced another change: It will merge its own product under a single business license, as a way to encourage large businesses to pay for their needs.

Sentry (2019)

Sentryand A $3 billion company behind the job evaluation software of the same name, was available under license BSD 3-Clause open source license. But in 2019, the company moved to BUSL, and its co-founder and CTO David Cramer says that this was against “businesses that are paid with money to write or copy our work to compete directly with Sentry.”

Last year, Sentry it started its own Functional Source License (The price of FSL), which is similar to BUSL but slightly simpler. And as of this year, Sentry is putting its weight behind it a new concept of permission it is called “good source,” which, as TechCrunch said at the time, “is designed to be compatible with the open and proprietary worlds, full of new definitions, definitions, and control systems.”

Entertainment (2021)

It was several years in productionbut Interesting – a business search engine developer Elasticsearch and Kid dashboard view – gone owner in 2021. It was a well-known story, which can be started in 2015 when AWS started his own service powered by Elasticsearch.

However, Elastic stands alone as one of the only companies to leave the open source space, and come back. Back in August, Elastic announced it will depend AGPL license – different from the Apache 2.0 license used before 2021, but open source.

HashiCorp (2023)

Results HashiCorp they also left the train open last year, to announce that it was replacing its famous “infrastructure as code” tool. Terraform from the open source copyleft license to BUSL.

The most obvious reason was to prevent other vendors from investing in Terraform without paying anything back for the project.

An open fork called OpenTofu was was launched earlier this year and third parties, and as otherwise noted, IBM spun off HashiCorp $6.4 billion.

Snowplow (2024)

Snowa VC-backed platform which helps companies collect behavioral data for AI software, this year change from open source Apache 2.0 license for Snowplow Limited License Agreement.

Therefore, the company said, it has to pay for the “interesting way of technology,” and therefore everyone who runs its software in production must “pay the price that it receives.” The new license also prevents users from creating a competition built on top of Snowplow.