KanectaCompare
There are two "open" ways to make software, and one closed way. Open source and open ownership have nearly everything in common. Here's the one place they differ, side by side.
| Commercial | Open source | Open ownership | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Can you read the source? | Usually not | Yes | Yes, all of it |
| Can you change it and share changes? | No | Yes | Yes |
| Can you fork it? | No | Yes | Yes, and nobody can ever take that away |
| What does it cost? | Whatever the company charges | Nothing | One price, set by the members — or nothing if you declare hardship |
| Who pays for the work? | Customers, for the company's profit | Volunteers, or companies with their own reasons | The people who use it, through their mutuals |
| Who decides where it goes? | The company | Whoever pays the maintainers | The members, one person one vote |
| Can it be sold? | Yes | The project can be bought or abandoned; your copy stays yours | No. The trust deed forbids it, permanently |
| What do you own? | A licence to use it | Your copy | Your copy, and a share in the project |
| Does it check up on you? | Often: keys, activation, accounts | No | No. No keys, no activation, no phone-home |
| Official category | Proprietary | Open source (OSI-approved licences) | Source available, not open source |
We like open source
Most of the software we use is open source and we release our own small libraries under MIT. For a small library that does one thing, that's exactly right, and we'd tell you to keep doing it.
Open ownership is for one kind of project: big, broad, user-facing software that needs steady money to stay good and stay secure. For that kind of project, the price of zero leaves only two ways to pay the bills — volunteers, or a company with its own reasons. We wanted a third.
We're not trying to be open source, and we don't claim OSI approval. Open source gives you ownership of your copy. Open ownership gives you a share in the project. One is a copy on your disk; the other is a vote on where it goes.