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The Redis thing underscores a key point: _open source is not enough_. We need _community built software_ -- free and open source licenses are just one aspect of that.

If a company requires you to assign copyright (or equivalent re-licensing rights) in an asymmetrical way, they will inevitably eventually decide to take that option once they want to cash in on the goodwill you've built for them (let alone the code).

Indeed, there are four levels of open:

- Open source - under an OSI license
- Open community - may accept contributions
- Open governance - adds contributors to become maintainers
- Open brand - trademark is owned by a nonprofit foundation

@mattdm

@shanecurcuru

I'm not really fond of that list.

Particularly:

* I don't think these are "levels", but rather some (but not all) aspects of openness.

* I don't see how "may accept contributions" relates to "open community" — I mean, they seem unrelated, not just a framing I would put differently

Shane Curcuru

Explicitly using level instead of aspect to show the common progression.

Open community is a project that actually accepts contributions from the community, based on value to project. Unlike some corporate open source projects that simply don't ever merge outside PRs or the like. Hence, the community of regular contributors might grow, rather than being static.

@mattdm