Below I want to add an important remark, it’s more of a personal opinion about “monetization” and open source. 🙂 Please see it as such:
Talking about “the monetization”: Yes, I am talking about it and I am doing it since years. Do you think I am spending hours and hours every week for fun? Or that I like seeing companies using it without giving at least something back when they need support or hosted services?
That’s probably why most open source projects die. Who wants to work for other peoples profit for free forever? That’s not what open source is about. Not at all. If you think “I can have that for free” is the philosophy of open source, you are wrong.
Nothing you say “is facts” and I think it’s just ignorant to completely ignore the announcements and discussions we had about this.
Do you think moving to a GmbH means more people can work for your profit for free? It means much better support, many more resources and a stable future for mailcow. It does not mean that other projects will pay for mailcow. Just as before, we make profit of IT services. We sell the planning of IT infrastructures, IT support and services around it. When we offer mailcow support, it will not be for free. When we sell redundant mailcows, it will not be for free. You get this point? You exchange money for services.
mailcow makes profit by selling SALs (and I want to say thank you for everyone buying a SAL, it helps mailcow so much) and by selling support or managed services for a ridiculous low price (like 3 months of support for 75 €, come on, which company offers a single hour IT support for that price?).
Look at Dovecot or SOGo and the companies behind it. Is Dovecot not open source anymore? Is SOGo not open source? Would you prefer seeing a single person on SOGo or Dovecot? I don’t think so.
The reason I am mad about this: I think many open source project died because of misunderstandings like these. And many projects keep dying because their owners are afraid to “monetize” their work. Donations will not feed a family.