# Open-core concerns **URL:** \ **Category:** Feedback\ **Tags:** community\ **Created:** [September 27, 2022, 10:29pm UTC](https://community.baserow.io/t/open-core-concerns/1467 "2022-09-27T22:29:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 36
**Author:** ![wolftune](https://community.baserow.io/user_avatar/community.baserow.io/wolftune/32/740_2.png) [@wolftune](https://community.baserow.io/u/wolftune)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2023, 12:36am UTC](https://community.baserow.io/t/open-core-concerns/1467/36 "2023-09-13T00:36:15Z")
> [@anon59363363](#): > > I don’t think this makes sense, generally laws should reflect what the people want and not something that someone in the organizations decides for us. If we try to discuss this here, it’ll take years. “What the people want” is not a simple concept. People today want convenience, and people say they want cheap gas for their cars, and people say they want to pay less taxes. But people don’t want to live without public services and don’t want the ecological collapse that many other things we “want” lead to… How should laws be made? Again years of discussion. I didn’t say anything about whether the laws I suggested should be implemented today or how or by who, I just said they would serve the end of software freedom. The point is to understand that copyleft is a pragmatic _hack_ a workaround of current law. Copyleft is not itself an ideal (regardless of whether you agree with the ideal that copyleft is not). > [@anon59363363](#): > > From what I understand you were complaining about not having the features you wanted like “Kanban”. In addition to complaining, with good reason, about the fact that “Baserow is not 100% open” in the sense of the terms of service and the software license. I can access Kanban by paying for the proprietary hosting. My concern was only about it being proprietary. So, I wouldn’t even have had the complaint if Kanban and all other features were _in_ the MIT-licensed repo _but_ turned off for the hosting service free level (which means self-hosters could have Kanban, but self-hosting is a hassle, the point is for the code to be FLO). I might then happily _pay_ for the hosting convenience, happily knowing that I’m supporting uncompromised Open Source software. You should read my very first intro post that led to this topic: [Introduce Yourself: New Member Monday [September/October] - #2 by wolftune](https://community.baserow.io/t/introduce-yourself-new-member-monday-september-october/1316/2) > [@Introduce Yourself: New Member Monday \[September/October\]](https://community.baserow.io/t/introduce-yourself-new-member-monday-september-october/1316/2): > > Because I see enormous problems with the power dynamics of proprietary technology (and proprietary limitations in other areas too, e.g. in music — my background mainly), I really hesitate to get locked into SaaS tools or even proprietary local apps. > > So far, I see Baserow having enormous potential, it’s really usable. I’m a little scared about the direction of taking VC investment. While tools like this can only be great with dedicated, funded teams, I worry that the VC path will force Baserow to eventually compromise on FLO values. > > … I see my worries are largely _too late_ actually. Baserow is _not_ fully-FLO already, it’s open-core with proprietary stuff. I was thinking that the limitations for the free-of-charge stuff was limited for the _free hosting_ but that the software was still FLO. Nope. I was wrong. How unfortunate. I started exploring competitors, but nothing is perfect. I’ll see. Not sure if I’ll stick around. I’d much rather be part of and support **and pay for** 100% FLO project that doesn’t have the weird power dynamics and anti-community issues that open-core brings up. > [@anon59363363](#): > > For most people, this meant that avoiding “exploitation of proprietary code” would be a way of avoiding “exploitation of capitalism in software development.” RMS is not an advocate of capitalism per se. People can be critics of capitalism without being supporters of anarchism. But okay, yes, _some_ ideas may happen to be anarchist-enough or anarchist-compatible. That doesn’t mean everyone who supports such ideas is ideologically anarchist or in agreement with anarchy overall. > [@anon59363363](#): > > Why should open source be a marketing topic? The same reason that “sustainable” is a marketing topic — because people should (and many do) _care_ about it as a value. Hence, marketers like to use popular ideas, and the ideas _should_ be popular because they are _good_ ideas, and people caring is one step, and products living up to the marketed values is another step. > [@anon59363363](#): > > What you can do is if you have the money to keep the software open source or even use other software like Nocodb that works locally and has all the features. By saying this, are you also suggesting “don’t talk about or engage with products you have concerns or criticism of”? It’s easy to infer that. This is somewhat common rhetoric, and while there’s an aspect of it that is sensible (the part about checking that people consider their options and not _only_ complain), the idea of “don’t complain” is not really good (and people who say it are usually hypocrites who are complaining-about-complaining). In this case, Baserow representative responded graciously, my concerns were expressed and heard, and some small actions were even taken. Projects that are in good faith and care about communities _want_ to hear complaints, and complaints can be constructive. “if you don’t like something, don’t use it” often sounds like “don’t mention complaints, keep them to yourself”. For the most part, I think this rhetoric is usually more harmful than helpful. I do appreciate and agree with many of the things you’ve said in this exchange. The issue of orphan software is indeed part of the issue, but that doesn’t bring up the concern about VC-funded software companies going in user-hostile directions after initially gaining enough adoption and lock-in — a pattern which ends up with non-orphaned software that is controlled exclusively by a company that has a lot of power over users. In the case of Open Source, the users have more of an easier out, and having that also discourages bad behavior by the company in the first place. --- _[View the full topic](https://community.baserow.io/t/open-core-concerns/1467)._