Guest Post by Salman Munir

Yep, we all love them and use them all the time. My de facto browser is Firefox, all my databases are in MySql and I prefer to use anything, which is Open Source. So do most of us.

Without mentioning the name of the product and the company, I have recently experienced a rather unique situation. I have been using an application like SugarCRM (www.sugarcrm.com), which came with 2 flavors i.e., Open Source and a paid professional version. No problems there! If I liked what the Open Source model has to offer and badly needed the facilities the pricier Professional version has to deliver, I would invest in it.
But what this company has done with a recent release is pretty interesting. There were features working in the Open Source version, perfectly. With the new release, on 1 feature they have imposed “use it free for 10 times in a day otherwise upgrade”, and this is a relatively simple AJAX based form. And for the other previously working feature they simply came out bluntly, Pay Now or Good Bye!
My question would be:

1. What is at the end of the day Open Source?
2. If some features, which were present previously working without any “Pay upfront” requirement, can they stop it in a new release?

Just imagine, tomorrow Wordpress stops to function due to some imposition like this. What is supposed to be considered as commandments of OSS applications than?