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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.

“This will help proprietary vendors maintain the feature/function gap vs. OSS vendors. Recall that for the majority of single-vendor backed OSS products, there is virtually no cost savings vs. developing closed-source software. To close the feature/function gap, OSS vendors need faster revenue growth to fund this development expense,” he writes.

“The OSS vendor community needs leaders who will stand up to ‘the community’ and make the tough business decisions needed to ensure that OSS isn?t relegated to a small revenue slice of the software industry pie.”

In the light of the reaction to his post, Matt Asay responds to this suggestion: “Most days I’d find this simply wrong, but reading the responses to a harmless suggestion that people should contribute more to open-source projects…it makes you wonder.”

I have previously observed a growing animosity of some sectors of the open source software user community towards commercial software vendors and activities. Where once the commercial success of an open source vendor was to be celebrated, increasingly it seems it is treated by some as a reason for caution and doubt.

I may be wrong, but there appears to me to be a strengthening commitment in some quarters to the ideals of the Free Software Foundation in rejection of the commercial opportunities provided by the Open Source Initiative.

What do people think? Coincidence, or are strange things afoot at the Circle K?