[Joe, Pulumi Founder here.]

Said well (and thank you for being a customer and valuable member of our community!)

The analogy I draw sometimes is that our open source infrastructure as code SDK ("Pulumi") is like Git, and our commercial offering ("Pulumi Cloud") is like GitHub.

Like GitHub, the Pulumi Cloud offers valuable features that go beyond the open source project for teams looking to manage lots of projects securely at scale, but we definitely love our open source community and want folks to have the choice to use Pulumi however makes the most sense for them.

This approach also has the nice consequence that we can be fully transparent with our community at all times while also building a strong, long-term business. If a new feature is part of the infrastructure as code SDK, it's open source and free; if it's part of the Pulumi Cloud SaaS, it's part of our commercial offering. This avoids needing to do things like artificially hold back features (like open core) or violating our commitment to the open source community (like Hashi's new license).

So here's my perspective on these two competing models:

1. I can read all of the code, modify it, and self-host it for my own purposes, but the license disallows me from re-selling it.

2. I can read, modify, self-host, and commercialize a subset of the code, and the rest is an opaque SaaS.

To me, as a customer with no interest in re-selling this code, I don't see how #2 is better than #1 in any way. And I find it incredibly mystifying that I keep seeing companies ragged on here for doing #1 while the model in #2 is somehow held up as the paragon of ethical virtue or something.

Can you help me understand? Why is it better for me to be able to read less of the code I'm running?

Convenience and reliability from a business perspective

For #2 in good faith using the github model here,

Sure there’s Git and Github. Also sourcehut, using google cloud source repository or any managed git service.

Either 1) I need the software and I can have a team maintain it.

Electing for the software-as-a-service vs self hosted model is in itself.

1. I can compute, resources, maintenance and time The proprietary or a version of the product myself or a fork and get the feature functionality from other open source or provider.

2. Pay for the GitHub licensing cost and using the service and ok with magic abstractions to operate the software. (Which admirably lately has been bad.

Also frame it as from the beginning of the git project elected to also build all the same parity features, would it be the same tool, be the product that exists, or brain share it has today. Maybe not.

I maybe misunderstanding you here but in these cases opaqueness is part your trade off to offload fairly complex for a marginal cost that’s s decision by you.

Yeah I think you misunderstood my point a bit.

What I like best is to use a fully managed service that I can contribute changes or even self host a modified version if that's what I need to do to get what I need. But I don't want to self-host. But I highly value the option. And I highly value the ability to go read the code when I wonder "hmmm why is it doing that?" and maybe contribute a bug fix if it shouldn't be.

All of this works great with model #1 - with full "source available" with a license that limits re-sale - but is limited with model #2, where it only works for the "open core" portions of the product, but not the proprietary SaaS portion.

It’s also fair to say this isnt black and white and open source is vast and there are certain software and companies where opting for #2 that definitely feel like a big rug pull, money grab, and smack in the face to the community that supported them. (Is red hat in my opinion)

If you want to build something with a bunch of smart people for a long period of time the outcome is raising venture capital, paying people salaries that are competitive to share holders, and won’t implode. The bsl is a consequence of that but it is a rule to guard from the few bad apple in this case.

What’s ethical or virtuous or perfect is very nuanced

Yeah, I think this is right, and well put.

Usually the two are not mutually exclusive. Terraform Cloud (the HC equivalent of the aforementioned "opaque SaaS") is afaik not open source and never has been, you can't read the code for it or self-host it. Not opining on the broader issue, just clarifying this point.

Yes thank you for the clarification.

I prefer #1 too, given that the source code will eventually become FOSS one day.

SSPL is unacceptable for me because it have its restrictions last forever.

Is the Pulumi Individual Edition open for use by solo founders operating as a sole proprietership? I can't find anything clarifying whether it's individual (as in hobbyist, nonprofessional) or individual, as in, one person not collaborating with anyone else.

Yes it is open to individual comercial use (companies much larger then sole proprieterships may only have one person doing inferstructure). They also have a version for nonprofits https://www.pulumi.com/pricing/open-source-free-tier/

Do you have a source for that (or are you affiliated)?

Pulumi engineer here. There’s no restriction —- you’re free to use the Individual Edition commercially if you like.

Plausible is amazing, I love it. I moved off of another platform that started as open source and then went closed source, but Plausible ended up being a better platform over all anyways.