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Herdr is joining Y Combinator. The runtime stays open

herdr.dev

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Re: Herdr is joining Y Combinator. The runtime stays open

#11

Post by applfanboysbgon »

rvz wrote: post #10

Quick question: Would you have actually donated to Herdr if they were asking for donations? I don't think any of you would have, unless stated otherwise. So this is another reason why developers do not pay for their tools and instead the developers of these tools go to VCs anyway. It's not the fault of the author, but most of the users (developers themselves) always want their tools for free at $0. You have to pay an…

Yep. It's funny how much open source maximalists harm their own cause. Everything must be "free", ergo everything must be VC or big tech backed because free doesn't put bread on the table, so in the end devs just put more power in the hands of corporations and less power in the hands of themselves and other independent devs/small businesses, and then have the gall to complain when everything gets enshittified.

Re: Herdr is joining Y Combinator. The runtime stays open

#12

Post by hx8 »

I switched from tmux to Herdr about six weeks ago. It's a great bit of software, the UI is focused on switching between multiple agents quickly. I run Herdr to keep my opencode instances well managed, and it also works great for having a few terminals opens next to your agent. I find myself keeping opencode sessions open for longer like what happens with Codex and Claude code, which is great if I need to revisit a context to do some follow up work. I'm genuinely excited to see if the creators can bring even more value to the application.

If you're worried about enshittification I wouldn't be. It's relatively basic open source software that runs locally. A perfect candidate for a fork if the base app starts degrading.

Re: Herdr is joining Y Combinator. The runtime stays open

#15

Post by spudlyo »

rajangdavis wrote: post #7
ValentineC wrote: post #6

> That’s why I recently switched it from AGPL to Apache: I want everyone to use Herdr freely, without any problem. I'm curious what the actual problems with AGPL were.

Can't make money if people use your tool and are required to share their source code

Radix enim omnium malorum est cupiditas. Enshitification is sure to follow in one guise or another.

Re: Herdr is joining Y Combinator. The runtime stays open

#16

Post by hx8 »

rvz wrote: post #10

Quick question: Would you have actually donated to Herdr if they were asking for donations? I don't think any of you would have, unless stated otherwise. So this is another reason why developers do not pay for their tools and instead the developers of these tools go to VCs anyway. It's not the fault of the author, but most of the users (developers themselves) always want their tools for free at $0. You have to pay an…

I don't love this framing among software developers. This framing is very transactional, when many of the authors are explicitly trying to make their work free. The best thing a software dev can do is donate some of their time to do more open source development, and in that way we all benefit from having more and better open source tools. If someone wants to exchange code for money there are plenty of avenues to do that. Starting an open source project and using it to attract VC funding is one path.

Re: Herdr is joining Y Combinator. The runtime stays open

#20

Post by an0malous »

nlh wrote: post #2

I am a HUGE herdr fan - discovered it a few months ago and it's exactly what I need for my workflow. Thousands of others have discovered it as well, which is awesome. I have such mixed feelings about this - YC means VC means commercialization means enshitification. I really wish that weren't the case, but it so very often is. Here's hoping this one's different... (PS I am a big YC fan in general! I don't mean to soun…

It’s literally the VC playbook, the whole point of the funding is to undermine competitors with subsidized/free products and then raise prices/enshittify. Anyone who thinks it’ll be different this time is fooling themselves.
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