Open source EFSS is not a stepping stone to a sales call

If you’re an ownCloud customer whose reaction to “migrate to Kiteworks Private Data Network (PDN)” was “no, I chose open source”: this post is for you.

ownCloud Infinite Scale (oCIS)is not a funnel. Not a trial version. Not a community edition missing the features you actually need. It is the product.

You’ve seen the pattern elsewhere. Company acquires open source project. Community edition stays “free” but gradually loses features. Capabilities migrate behind a paywall. The message shifts from “it’s yours” to “talk to sales.”

We’ve committed, in published policies, to not doing that. The manifesto defines the boundary in writing. Core Enterprise File Sync and Share (EFSS), federation, APIs, governance, and clients stay open source. The enterprise layer adds compliance and policy enforcement for organizations with specific regulatory requirements. If you need it, it’s there. If you don’t, oCIS is complete without it.

The structural safeguards matter more than the words.
1. Apache 2.0 is one of the most permissive major OSI licenses.
If we broke our promises, anyone could fork and continue (as has happened twice already, in 2016 and 2025. The license makes it possible by design to ensure we stick to our promisses.
2. Swtiching from CLA to DCO (Developer Certificate of Origin) ensures that contributors retain their copyright.
3. Governance charter is the community oversight mechanisms that make boundary violations visible.

You chose open source for a reason. We respect that reason.

Tomorrow: we put it all in writing.

This is part 12 of this blog post series.
See the earlier posts:

1. A (re)-introduction to the ownCloud community
2. What happens when you fork twice, get acquired, and keep shipping anyway
3. We killed our own CLA. Here’s why that’s a good thing
4. PHP 8.3. Yes, for Classic. Yes, we heard you
5. What 108 repositories taught us about open source hygiene
6. I’m a script kid running an OSPO. That’s the point
7. Your PR was written by an AI. We don’t care. (But we do have rules.)
8. Stewardship is not the same as control: A governance charter for people who’ve been burned before.
9. Twelve documents, zero marketing slop: anatomy of an open source manifesto
10. What two forks and a Lessons Learned document can teach you about trust
11. Digital sovereignty is not a label you buy from a hyperscaler
12. How a school cloud with millions of users runs on software you can fork tomorrow