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Open source lies at the core of modern software development, but companies leveraging open source software often find themselves in a balancing act between satisfying their community and preventing misuse of the license. Many companies start with grand open source aspirations, only to retreat when faced with the harsh realities of the business world, especially when investors are involved.
Tracking changes in the open source landscape can be challenging, especially when companies shift away from open source entirely or adopt less permissive licenses. TechCrunch has compiled a timeline of open source companies that have changed their course over the past decade.
### Movable Type (2013)
Movable Type introduced an open source version of its web publishing software in 2007, but by 2013, the company decided to discontinue the open source product, citing low usage and its negative impact on commercial versions.
### SugarCRM (2014)
SugarCRM, a CRM software maker, ceased its open source “community edition” in 2014 due to a lack of effective serving of its core markets. The company continued to support the last version of the open source edition for four more years before discontinuing it in 2018.
### Redis (2018)
Redis, known for its in-memory database store, began transitioning away from open source in 2018 by altering its license. This shift was a precursor to other companies following suit due to concerns about competing database services.
Other companies like MongoDB, Confluent, Cockroach Labs, and Sentry also made significant changes to their open source licenses in the years following, reflecting a broader trend in the industry toward more restrictive licensing models.
Sentry, the app performance monitoring platform, made a significant shift in licensing in 2019. Co-founder and CTO David Cramer explained that the move to a BUSL license was to combat businesses plagiarizing their work. Last year, Sentry introduced its Functional Source License (FSL) and this year, they are backing a new licensing approach called “fair source.”
Elastic, known for Elasticsearch and Kibana, transitioned to a proprietary model in 2021 after AWS launched its own managed Elasticsearch service. Despite this move, Elastic later adopted an AGPL license, remaining open source.
In 2023, HashiCorp made a similar move by switching Terraform to a BUSL license to prevent vendors from profiting without contributing. An open source fork, OpenTofu, was created, and IBM acquired HashiCorp for $6.4 billion.
Snowplow, a platform for collecting behavioral data, also made a licensing change in 2024. They shifted from an Apache 2.0 license to a Snowplow Limited Use License Agreement to fund their technology roadmap and restrict the creation of competitive products.
