This is an interesting one.
Firstly, open source doesn't necessarily mean free and closed source doesn't necessarily mean paid.
It's basically whether the source-code for a piece of software is visible, that a user may modify, and that they may redistribute it (often with clauses restricting this capability like forcing them to keep copyright headers and in the case of the AGPL which no one really uses other than MongoDB, even forcing them to distribute all modifications back to the community).
Once a novelty, open source has taken the world by storm. Most major programming language runtimes are open source, as is the operating system Linux, the database MySQL, etc.
With open source, the theory is that a greater number of eyes will pick up on bugs, security vulnerabilities, etc. than closed software which keep the operations of their systems secret.
Closed source is preferred by businesses (particularly the more traditional ones), however as it helps to create an illusion of security by hiding it's behaviour (security by obscurity), it helps them to keep control out of the hands of the users, so that they can add features at their leisure and at their desired price points, and it means that their creations can never be used against them.
Plus, it helps with getting acquired when the buyers get complete control of the platform rather than having... technicalities and... issues pop-up.
Many of the commercial forum software with this model come from an earlier time with different traditions and practices, plus it was more difficult for them to find ways to monetise reliably.
Discourse has managed to monetise open source by providing a SaaS platform for businesses starting at $100/month with the biggest perks being support from the Discourse Team themselves (rather than likely clueless interns at a major hosting provider) and getting their features prioritised in the software.
In addition to that, due to it being open source, anyone can use it and contribute back to it, providing them with a vast amount of free labour with many features and bug-fixes being contributed in every cycle.
Plus, they don't have a "developer tax" aka needing to buy a piece of software to develop for it, so people can casually develop for it as a hobby and quite a few JS related YouTube channels have hopped onto teaching people how to develop Discourse plugins.
NodeBB is similar to Discourse, but without Jeff Atwood's business acumen, resources, and generally with less direction and vision, although some of their themes are a lot more palatable than Discourse.
Other open source systems, in other words, the pure blooded ones who don't charge people money for services are MyBB, phpBB, SMF, etc. although they've been greatly disadvantaged by their philosophies.
I can personally see a lot more things going open source in the future.
Firstly, open source doesn't necessarily mean free and closed source doesn't necessarily mean paid.
It's basically whether the source-code for a piece of software is visible, that a user may modify, and that they may redistribute it (often with clauses restricting this capability like forcing them to keep copyright headers and in the case of the AGPL which no one really uses other than MongoDB, even forcing them to distribute all modifications back to the community).
Once a novelty, open source has taken the world by storm. Most major programming language runtimes are open source, as is the operating system Linux, the database MySQL, etc.
With open source, the theory is that a greater number of eyes will pick up on bugs, security vulnerabilities, etc. than closed software which keep the operations of their systems secret.
Closed source is preferred by businesses (particularly the more traditional ones), however as it helps to create an illusion of security by hiding it's behaviour (security by obscurity), it helps them to keep control out of the hands of the users, so that they can add features at their leisure and at their desired price points, and it means that their creations can never be used against them.
Plus, it helps with getting acquired when the buyers get complete control of the platform rather than having... technicalities and... issues pop-up.
Many of the commercial forum software with this model come from an earlier time with different traditions and practices, plus it was more difficult for them to find ways to monetise reliably.
Discourse has managed to monetise open source by providing a SaaS platform for businesses starting at $100/month with the biggest perks being support from the Discourse Team themselves (rather than likely clueless interns at a major hosting provider) and getting their features prioritised in the software.
In addition to that, due to it being open source, anyone can use it and contribute back to it, providing them with a vast amount of free labour with many features and bug-fixes being contributed in every cycle.
Plus, they don't have a "developer tax" aka needing to buy a piece of software to develop for it, so people can casually develop for it as a hobby and quite a few JS related YouTube channels have hopped onto teaching people how to develop Discourse plugins.
NodeBB is similar to Discourse, but without Jeff Atwood's business acumen, resources, and generally with less direction and vision, although some of their themes are a lot more palatable than Discourse.
Other open source systems, in other words, the pure blooded ones who don't charge people money for services are MyBB, phpBB, SMF, etc. although they've been greatly disadvantaged by their philosophies.
I can personally see a lot more things going open source in the future.
