Limited Core

Some projects fit into the “open core” category. This is where they provide most needed functionality via a FOSS core project, but provide an alternative option with extra features under a non-FOSS license.

While this can be done well in some cases, in others it’s used primarily as a marketing & adoption driver, using the “open source” label for advertising while providing a seriously limited offering that’s essentially a demo.

The balance of what’s user-friendly in open-core can be subjective and dependent on user need, but the following can be indicators of a bad balance:

• Arbitrary count-based limits (limited users, limited roles, etc…).
• No transparent comparison of offerings, or not specifically showing the FOSS version in comparisons.
• No clear distinction between FOSS and non-FOSS offerings when talking about non-FOSS-only features.
• Promotion which mentions being “open source”, but lists features which are not in their FOSS version.