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Ask HN: Is it me, or are more and more YC companies open source?

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Re: Ask HN: Is it me, or are more and more YC companies open source?

#11

Post by RadiozRadioz »

freedomben wrote: post #6
version_five wrote: post #3

* marketing term * bait and switch * hold over from zero interest rates - get users and worry later about monetization * emerging legit business models that use open core

Exactly. Also, nowadays being "open source" is one of the only ways to gain technical-minded customers. The level of skepticism against closed-source things is high (and for good reasons, between vendor lock-in, guaranteed future enshittification which means you want a fork option, etc). Personally, I won't even consider adopting something that isn't open source anymore unless it's a product that I (or my company) re…

In the HN bubble maybe. The majority of people in tech do not care at all. For every one of us, there are 10 of them using SQLServer/Oracle/Windows/... without the slightest clue about how the licensing works.

Re: Ask HN: Is it me, or are more and more YC companies open source?

#13

Post by whyagaintango »

version_five wrote: post #3

* marketing term * bait and switch * hold over from zero interest rates - get users and worry later about monetization * emerging legit business models that use open core

And it gives the feeling anytime one can self/diy. Like kubernetes. Most can't aa it is too complex(and unnecessary) but gives a safety feeling.

Re: Ask HN: Is it me, or are more and more YC companies open source?

#14

Post by freedomben »

RadiozRadioz wrote: post #11
freedomben wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Also, nowadays being "open source" is one of the only ways to gain technical-minded customers. The level of skepticism against closed-source things is high (and for good reasons, between vendor lock-in, guaranteed future enshittification which means you want a fork option, etc). Personally, I won't even consider adopting something that isn't open source anymore unless it's a product that I (or my company) re…

In the HN bubble maybe. The majority of people in tech do not care at all. For every one of us, there are 10 of them using SQLServer/Oracle/Windows/... without the slightest clue about how the licensing works.

Great point, and a great reminder.

Re: Ask HN: Is it me, or are more and more YC companies open source?

#15

Post by whyagaintango »

RadiozRadioz wrote: post #11
freedomben wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Also, nowadays being "open source" is one of the only ways to gain technical-minded customers. The level of skepticism against closed-source things is high (and for good reasons, between vendor lock-in, guaranteed future enshittification which means you want a fork option, etc). Personally, I won't even consider adopting something that isn't open source anymore unless it's a product that I (or my company) re…

In the HN bubble maybe. The majority of people in tech do not care at all. For every one of us, there are 10 of them using SQLServer/Oracle/Windows/... without the slightest clue about how the licensing works.

Most do SaaS or dynamodb or lambda type app engine. Once it grows significantly then administration will need oracle etc. But hey these can be done by external contractors

Re: Ask HN: Is it me, or are more and more YC companies open source?

#16

Post by nativeit »

I have zero empirical data to back it up but as a freelance I.T. consultant, my gut instinct is that part of the trend (at least within the realm of I.T. infrastructure/security/management that I am most familiar with) has to do with increasing development of derivatives from other OSS projects, which generally involves adoption of the parent project’s license, in whole or in part, so there’s a function of OSS spawning more OSS.

It could be an interesting data analysis project to work out some mechanism for establishing OSS “family trees”.

Re: Ask HN: Is it me, or are more and more YC companies open source?

#17

Post by tracerbulletx »

RadiozRadioz wrote: post #11
freedomben wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Also, nowadays being "open source" is one of the only ways to gain technical-minded customers. The level of skepticism against closed-source things is high (and for good reasons, between vendor lock-in, guaranteed future enshittification which means you want a fork option, etc). Personally, I won't even consider adopting something that isn't open source anymore unless it's a product that I (or my company) re…

In the HN bubble maybe. The majority of people in tech do not care at all. For every one of us, there are 10 of them using SQLServer/Oracle/Windows/... without the slightest clue about how the licensing works.

A lot of these startups have founders from inside that bubble, which means their initial sales network and the market they know is that bubble. Which probably explains why they see it as a good idea.

Re: Ask HN: Is it me, or are more and more YC companies open source?

#19

Post by ausudhz »

muzani wrote: post #18

There's a trending model where they give away the magic for free and make money off services built around it. Often those services can be things like backup and monitoring that contain the lock in.

"trending" suse and red hat have been doing it for decades. Canonical too, among many others

Re: Ask HN: Is it me, or are more and more YC companies open source?

#20

Post by throwaway154 »

RadiozRadioz wrote: post #11
freedomben wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Also, nowadays being "open source" is one of the only ways to gain technical-minded customers. The level of skepticism against closed-source things is high (and for good reasons, between vendor lock-in, guaranteed future enshittification which means you want a fork option, etc). Personally, I won't even consider adopting something that isn't open source anymore unless it's a product that I (or my company) re…

In the HN bubble maybe. The majority of people in tech do not care at all. For every one of us, there are 10 of them using SQLServer/Oracle/Windows/... without the slightest clue about how the licensing works.

I would have said they also have procurement departments that did have a clue so one wasn't needed, but now it's more likely procurement has been outsourced to Accenture who do it for highest fee, paying for the convincing PPTs and golf, and lowest Accenture branded service center cost, paying $900/month fully loaded average across the team - the struggling 'knowledge workers' that know neither your company nor its specific needs.
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