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@element As a tax payer I want my government to use open source. Since Synapse Pro isn't, it's simply not usable for such cases.

Thank you for detailing the need for doing the same development to the open source Synapse as you have already done on Synapse Pro. I hope you do agree, it would be a pity to have to fork.

@troed We'd also like everything to be open source. But the reality is that even with AGPL, we're still stuck in the pattern that enormous deployments use FOSS Synapse without contributing to its dev/maintenance costs.

Every time an opportunity that we're counting on to fund the team turns around and says "oh, FOSS Synapse is good enough, and we can use it for free, bye" we find ourselves needing to provide a very concrete reason not to freeride - hence Synapse Pro.

@element @troed From my experience large scale deployers of software (also FOSS) always want an enterprise SLA, in case problems pop up they can't handle. Wondering who those large deployment orgs are that feel they can go without enterprise support.

@sunweaver @troed the problem is mainly that system integrators turn up saying they can provide that support and sla by using the foss project, and then try to save costs by not working with us as the upstream - meaning the upstream isn’t funded, undermining the underlying project, and increasing the chances of the delivery going wrong without expert support (and with a weakened upstream).

@element @troed The company mentioned in that Heise post is well-known for scrounging in OSS and not giving back much. Been there, seen that.