Be Transparent To The (Open) Core

“Transparency” is a vital term in open source: how easy is it to find out about some aspect of an open source project or product? Matthew Aslett of the 451 CAOS Theory blog went to find out how a number of vendors of open core products stacked up in this regard.

Open core means what it sounds like: a product with an open source base, with add-ons or alternate versions that might not be. Matt’s test, dubbed “the open core transparency test”, involved a profile a number of open core vendors — e.g., SugarCRM, Jaspersoft, Talend, Hyperic — and a quick breakdown of how easy it was to determine a) the differences between each edition of their software, b) the licensing details for each edition, and c) the pricing for the cost-plus bits…

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