Can tr.im find the right open source model

It's all explained in a blogalicious post from co-founder Eric Woodward, who said that by September 15 Nambu will become an open source project offering its software under the GPL-compatible MIT license.

URL shorteners have been around for years, but the need for them became critical with the rise of Twitter, with its SMS-like 140-character message length. Twitter's importance can be seen in a chart credited to Tweetmeme showing bit.ly with an 80% market share following its Twitter tie-up.

John Borthwick of Bit.ly told ReadWriteWeb that the Tr.im community will face an immediate problem of scaling. Scaling will take cash.

If a community can deliver cash, however, Tr.im could return some important value to the open source community and to the larger Web.

With the software open source any Web site will be able to offer its users URL shortening or incorporate that into its service. Tr.im also wants to work with Gnip.com to make aggregate anonymized user data available free.

While I applaud open source, I wonder whether the "community" model of open source is the one Tr.im really wants to pursue, since so much of its value seems pointed toward businesses. Communities are great for delivering volunteers and users, not so great for delivering the green.

Perhaps an alliance of businesses could support Tr.im on a model like that of Eclipse, or a scaled business could sponsor the project, delivering the relatively small amount of cash Tr.im needs to grow through open source.