Earlier quoted context omitted.
By this logic, you also should release all of your code as free software under permissive licenses.
This but unironically
Exactly.
Ask HN: Founders who offer free/OS and paid SaaS, how do you manage your code?
81–90 of 117 posts
Re: Ask HN: Founders who offer free/OS and paid SaaS, how do you manage your code?
#82What benefits will open source give you? Just keep it closed if you don’t have a good answer.
Re: Ask HN: Founders who offer free/OS and paid SaaS, how do you manage your code?
#83I have a single code base [0] for the self-hosted editions and for the SaaS. I split features up across two editions: community edition (CE) and enterprise edition (EE), and then also two modes: singleplayer and multiplayer (single- vs multi-tenant). The switching is done via environment variables, KEYGEN_EDITION and KEYGEN_MODE. The SaaS offering actually runs the EE edition in multiplayer mode, and is right now the…
I haven't heard of Fair Source before -- is it gaining traction? Did you use the "legacy license" (that is linked to on the website)?
It's bleeding edge -- not even "official" yet. It's meant to be an umbrella term to replace the 'open source' vs 'source available' debacle when discussing permissive 'almost-open-source' non-compete licenses like FSL, BUSL, SSPL, ELv2, etc.
More: https://twitter.com/chadwhitacre_/status/1790101820364267902
Re: Ask HN: Founders who offer free/OS and paid SaaS, how do you manage your code?
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Got an good pointers for writing pluggable code? How to make the app itself ready to get all these fancy plugins?
WordPress is a pretty good example (and all the problems that entails if it gets out of hand). They use a hook/filter model to change outputs of various systems via plugins, and allow plugins to reimplment low-level functionality. I recommend checking out their approach, as it is pretty flexible.
Another good example is CKAN, the most widely used open data portal platform. Their docs are pretty good on how to write plugins -- gives you an idea of how the architecture works.
Re: Ask HN: Founders who offer free/OS and paid SaaS, how do you manage your code?
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
1. You can read more about the Fair Source initiative here: https://twitter.com/chadwhitacre_/status/1790101820364267902 (also [0] and [1] for previous discussions). It's not official yet, but it's an attempt to define a new term for Open Source vs Source Available. I figured I'd start using the term early and see what happens. 2. Yes, the ELv2 will be considered a Fair Source license, because it allows contributions…
What was your calculus on ELv2 vs SSPL? The latter feels a better fit for the continuation of copyleft--too close to the fears you mentioned around AGPL?
I looked at SSPL, but it was really between BUSL and ELv2 for me. I ultimately chose ELv2 because it allowed me to keep my community edition and enterprise edition in a monorepo, where the latter edition is protected by license keys, i.e. ELv2 has a clause to where you can't remove or circumvent the license key functionality.
Since Keygen was previously closed source, I didn't want to split the repo up into the ee/ directory structure that you commonly see in other open core and fair source projects. I deemed doing so as 'too risky' -- too much code churn for little benefit -- as those changes would have a direct effect on the SaaS.
Instead, I opted for ELv2 because it offered me the ability to say, "hey, I'm making this fair source, do what you want with it, just don't compete with me or remove the license gates for the paid features."
Here's some of my internal dialog i.r.t. the license choice: https://github.com/keygen-sh/keygen-api/pull/668
Re: Ask HN: Founders who offer free/OS and paid SaaS, how do you manage your code?
#86I have a single code base [0] for the self-hosted editions and for the SaaS. I split features up across two editions: community edition (CE) and enterprise edition (EE), and then also two modes: singleplayer and multiplayer (single- vs multi-tenant). The switching is done via environment variables, KEYGEN_EDITION and KEYGEN_MODE. The SaaS offering actually runs the EE edition in multiplayer mode, and is right now the…
We need more business owners like you. I’d never heard of your product (I’m not in an industry that would have one), just read your blog post on the license; I I wish you wild success and I hope more small dev shops will have the same courage and the same outcome. Cheers!
Thanks for the kind words. I've seen quite a lot of open/fair source companies this past year. But I'd love to see even more! (And I'd really love to see more bootstrapped ones!)
Re: Ask HN: Founders who offer free/OS and paid SaaS, how do you manage your code?
#87I have a single code base [0] for the self-hosted editions and for the SaaS. I split features up across two editions: community edition (CE) and enterprise edition (EE), and then also two modes: singleplayer and multiplayer (single- vs multi-tenant). The switching is done via environment variables, KEYGEN_EDITION and KEYGEN_MODE. The SaaS offering actually runs the EE edition in multiplayer mode, and is right now the…
Thanks for sharing, such an interesting approach! At my startup we're currently discussing licenses, this is very inspiring. I have a follow-up question! The reasons for OSS you list include "Bus-Factor", "Longevity", and "Continuity". I'd summarize all of those as "even if they can't do business with [company] anymore, users can continue on" - our customers also say that's very important to them. ... But what if "ca…
I've sold multi-year and perpetual EE licenses for this exact reason -- to reduce risk of eventually losing EE features if Keygen LLC goes under and is unable to renew EE licenses. So in this case, if Keygen LLC goes under, they still have a perpetual EE license that will allow them to use existing EE features. But this is something I've been thinking about lately, and something my customers have been talking about. I want to come up with a better answer other than "well, pay me for a perpetual license and we'll remove that risk."
Maybe some kind of clause for a "Change License" in case Keygen LLC goes under, e.g. we go from ELv2 to Apache 2.0 if that happens. I'm not really sure what that'd look like right now, but I'll keep thinking on this and hopefully come up with a good answer eventually.
Outside of that, nothing is really stopping somebody from forking Keygen and reimplementing the EE features 'in-spirit' under a new code path, especially if Keygen LLC has gone bust. They just can't remove or copy the existing EE features verbatim.
Re: Ask HN: Founders who offer free/OS and paid SaaS, how do you manage your code?
#88I have a single code base [0] for the self-hosted editions and for the SaaS. I split features up across two editions: community edition (CE) and enterprise edition (EE), and then also two modes: singleplayer and multiplayer (single- vs multi-tenant). The switching is done via environment variables, KEYGEN_EDITION and KEYGEN_MODE. The SaaS offering actually runs the EE edition in multiplayer mode, and is right now the…
I can confirm this approach works. We've been a satisfied paying keygen customer for 6-7 years, long before keygen was open sourced, and the fact that it is now doesn't change our decision to continue to pay for its use. If you have something that works well and fills a certain need, customers are happy to pay for it so they don't have to give any thought to it and can focus on their own core competency.
Thanks for the kind words, and for being a long-time customer (whoever you are). :)
I need to send your team some shirts!
Re: Ask HN: Founders who offer free/OS and paid SaaS, how do you manage your code?
#89I have a separate codebase for FREE which ended up unmaintained. Now, I think it's better with a monorepo where you will have the chance to share code and update as frequent as you need.
Re: Ask HN: Founders who offer free/OS and paid SaaS, how do you manage your code?
#90Don't split your codebase. Just add some flags if it is self-hosted or not. Devs here will cry and tell you you can't do that and people can bypass it. Really don't listen to them. 99% of the people who purchase your SaaS instead of self-hosting do it because they don't want the hassle. The rest won't buy from you anyway. The biggest problem is getting SOMETHING out there. If you have success (which let's be honest m…
Also few enterprises are willing to risk openly violating a licence, even if no technical barriers exist.
This is precisely what Adobe's model was up to Creative Cloud. Probably tens if not hundreds of thousands of young people, school kids and students, grabbed the CS5/6 keygen off of some warez site, taught themselves how to use Photoshop, and asked later employers to provide them with Photoshop.
Nowadays, it's not the case any more as the 20€ or so a month are affordable for a lot of people.