> > How long until the entire code base gets co-opted?
>
> Yeah so what? Nobody's forcing you to use, buy, or pay attention to any
> such efforts. The market will determine whether the release model of
> PostgreSQL, Inc. appeals to customers. Open source software is a
> privilege, and nobody has the right to call someone "irresponsible"
> because they want to get paid for their work and don't choose to give away
> their code.
Just bear in mind that although a few developers always deliver outstanding
performance in any project, those open source projects have usually seen a
huge broad developer base. Hundreds of people putting their effort into the
project. These people never ask for a cent, never even dream of some
commercial benefit. They do it for the sake of creating something good,
being part of something great.
Especially in the case of Postgres the "product" has a long heritage, and
the most active people today are not neccessarily the ones who have put in
most "total" effort (AFAIK, I might be wrong here). Anyway, Postgres would
not be where it is today without the hundreds of small cooperators &
testers. Lock them out from the source code - even if it is only a side
branch, and Postgres will die (well, at least it would die for our project)
Open source is not a mere marketing model. It is a philosophy. It is about
essential freedom, about human progress, about freedom of speech and
thought. It is about sharing and caring. Those who don't understand this,
should please stick to their ropes and develop closed source from the
beginning and not try to fool the free software community.
Horst