FSFE position on "open core"

[Florian Weimer]

Kern Sibbald recently wrote this:

| While I was consulting with the Free Software Foundation Europe
| (FSFE) on the Bareos copyright violations, Bacula Systems and I
| began discussions with the FSFE on how to guarantee the long term
| survival of Bacula.  These discussions, extremely positive on both
| sides and all points, recently lead to a formal written agreement
| between myself, Bacula Systems, and the FSFE. There are a number of
| points in the agreement, but probably the most important of all is
| that Bacula Systems has now put in writing that it is an Open Source
| company (at its heart), as it has always proclaimed, and will
| contribute all the Enterprise code it creates to the Bacula
| Community code base within at most a 5 year period.  One exception
| is that Bacula Systems is legally unable to contribute certain code
| encumbered by third party proprietary license.  The 5 year delay
| gives Bacula Systems the chance to develop Enterprise features that
| differentiate it, but ensures the continual growth of the Bacula
| Community code.  This model can possibly be used across the industry
| to ensure the future of open source software in an environment where
| development costs, particularly for hardware to do testing, are
| prohibitive to the standard models of today.

(It's currently available at <http://bacula.org/en/?page=news>, but
this doesn't look like a stable URL.)

I find this quite surprising.  Does FSF Europe really think that this
model is a good way to fund free software development, absorbing the
leftovers from proprietary software?