TNS Article: How to Gracefully Sunset Free / OS Features

I doubt anyone relishes the idea of moving a free or open source feature to the paid version, because no one likes being on the receiving end of a move like that. You know at least some users are going to be mad. So, largely in response to the controversy of the Docker Free Teams sunsetting (and later reversal), I wrote a piece for The New Stack about moving functionality from free (either freemium or open source) to paid editions. Check it out.

I’ll also editorialize a little: Usually I’m not surprised when I interview people for the articles I write for TNS, but this time I was. I was expecting most people I interviewed to be horrified, particularly at the idea of moving functionality away from OSS and into the paid version. That was not the opinion that I encountered. Instead, the consensus was that this happens, but there are better and worse ways to manage the transition. I’m very pro-you-must-make-a-profit, and I definitely talked to others solidly in the ‘making a profit is very important’ camp, but I’m actually not sure how I feel about it. I tend to agree with Joe Brockmeier, who said that if too many open core companies take features out of their OSS, it undermines the reputation of open source collectively.