I think many of us have already noticed that a growing number of open-source projects and libraries are moving towards commercial or dual-licensing models.
In the .NET ecosystem, several widely used libraries have taken this path over the past year or so. AutoMapper and MediatR introduced commercial editions under a dual-licensing model, Fluent Assertions began requiring a paid licence for commercial use with version 8, and MassTransit 9 became a commercial product.
These libraries were widely used in .NET applications and I mean widely used. Many projects treated them almost as a standard part of the ecosystem.
Now, the same change is reaching the frontend world. PrimeTek recently announced that future major versions of PrimeNG, PrimeReact and PrimeVue will no longer be released as open source.
All these projects were widely adopted, and many commercial applications depended heavily on them. Their licensing changes were primarily driven by the cost of long-term maintenance, but this raises a broader question:
