I sympathize with Conor here—it's already so hard to get a tool like this off the ground; adding more constraints (i.e. on production flywheel) seems like asking for trouble. I love that we've found some models that work (e.g. open core); I'd love to see a playbook collection.
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I struggle with this in my own work. It's obvious that if it's to succeed in the long term, Orbit wants to be an open standard with OSS implementations. But it's also obvious that there are enormous path dependencies; it's not at all clear when and how it's best to move to open.
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My current inclination is to rapidly publish sources under restrictive "source available" licenses, then slowly move modules to open licenses from the bottom of the stack upwards as I better understand my path to sustainability. But who knows…
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Would your answer change if we were talking about academic research? Where the work is material to the final product? Is there an inflection along the gradient where closing source is better for users? Because e.g. the org is more focused?
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What matters is whether sufficient funding is available to produce the insights you care about. In some domains (often tools for thought because of insight-through-making), this requires funding a $$$-skills team for years. If an academic grant lets you do that, great—OSS away.
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(of course the other thing that matters a lot here is that dollars are not fungible; grant dollars push you around differently from VC dollars / bootstrap dollars / Patreon dollars…)
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I can appreciate an argument that VCs may be less willing to fund a project whose code is open source, though I have a hard time imagining this being a/the deciding factor.
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Venture funding requires that projects be able to produce (lots of) revenue. It is of course possible to produce revenue with OSS, but it's not the norm, and it requires thoughtful strategy. If you have such a strategy, great!
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You also need to explain why your future closed-source competitor, which can leverage your work for free, will not simply eat you. There are approaches for this, too, but again, you'd better have an explicit strategy.
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Why shouldn't they?
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You won't get funded if it seems likely that they will, so you won't produce transformative insight. If you get funded anyway, you have repeated games to worry about.
I think I have to agree that there can be additional challenges (e.g. funding) with a project which has its source open source. Closing source is a defense mechanism.
I am willing to admit I may have bias; I've seen many open source projects succeed in my bubble.
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I believe this reality is more one of self-perpetuation and fear than it is justified, but that just means it needs more examples and I'm happy to do my part on the front of burden of proof. :)