Maybe it’s a coincidence but this week has seen evidence of tension between commercial open source vendors and elements of the open source user community. Matt Asay stirred up something of a hornet’s nest with his post questioning how open source vendors can find ways of encouraging users to contribute either code of cash in return for free software.

The question itself might be innocuous but Matt’s use of the term “free-riders” prompted a couple of angry responses. Storm in a tea-cup stuff really.

Meanwhile, in a unrelated post, Savio Rodrigues was wondering “is the community hurting the OSS business model?” The answer to that might well be “it depends which OSS business model you’re talking about” but nevertheless Savio’s point is that community reaction to MySQL’s commercial plans may have undermined not MySQL’s business model and development plans.

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