Their reasons for going open source (and they're not, they're open core) is:
1. "If Briefer disappears tomorrow, people can still use the software"
2. "it helps us build a strong community"
3. "by going open-source we commoditize our competitors' core functionality"
But none of this pans out.
With 1), GitHub is littered with abandoned company projects that nobody forked. If people were paying for your product because they wanted managed hosting and support, they're not going to try to keep using it forked (if they even can) if there is a competitor who provides a managed hosting product. So nobody's going to keep using your product after your company dies just because it's open source.
With 2), companies almost always end up completely ignoring the "community" and just doing whatever they want. The real "community" is often just people on StackOverflow, Reddit or somewhere else, trying in vain to get someone to help them solve a problem the company won't, and usually has nothing to do with code. Even if the product is open source and a user wants to do the hard work of fixing a problem in code and submitting a PR, the company can just balk and reject it (which many companies do). So just because it's open source doesn't mean there will be support for a real community.
With 3), nothing is commoditized, because you're open-core. Like with all "open source companies", the really good features will be locked up behind a paywall. So being open source doesn't really give an advantage over competitors either.
The only good reasons to go open source are 1) there's still people out there who will get excited about the idea of open source, and use the product just for that fact alone, because they haven't been burned by an "open source company" yet, and 2) open source is a great way to attract engineering talent.
With 1), GitHub is littered with abandoned company projects that nobody forked. If people were paying for your product because they wanted managed hosting and support, they're not going to try to keep using it forked (if they even can) if there is a competitor who provides a managed hosting product. So nobody's going to keep using your product after your company dies just because it's open source.
With 2), companies almost always end up completely ignoring the "community" and just doing whatever they want. The real "community" is often just people on StackOverflow, Reddit or somewhere else, trying in vain to get someone to help them solve a problem the company won't, and usually has nothing to do with code. Even if the product is open source and a user wants to do the hard work of fixing a problem in code and submitting a PR, the company can just balk and reject it (which many companies do). So just because it's open source doesn't mean there will be support for a real community.
With 3), nothing is commoditized, because you're open-core. Like with all "open source companies", the really good features will be locked up behind a paywall. So being open source doesn't really give an advantage over competitors either.
The only good reasons to go open source are 1) there's still people out there who will get excited about the idea of open source, and use the product just for that fact alone, because they haven't been burned by an "open source company" yet, and 2) open source is a great way to attract engineering talent.