Neary: Rotten to the (Open) Core?

In my opinion, it is legitimate to make _add on_ products and utilities that are proprietary. But the open source software package released as part of an "open core" project should be based the same source code as the core of the proprietary version.

Otherwise the company is essentially forking the code base and making a "hand-me-down", flaky version for the outside world. If the open version of the core package isn't genuinely useful, stable, and up-to-date as a standalone software package, the claim to "open core" is a sham. Why would any outside developer want to contribute to a project like that?

And if the "open" core doesn't actually share the same source base as the "proprietary" core, the claim to "open core" is arguably fraudulent, because the core of the proprietary version isn't actually open at all.