Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon

#71

Post by joemi » Fri, Sep 02, 2022, 6:38 PM UTC

melony wrote: post #42

jpatt wrote: post #24

A few points I'm skeptical of: simply connect to the seller’s infra instead of locking them in. One of the value-adds of Amazon is there's a whole bunch of tech sellers don't need to know how to write, run, and maintain. You'd need to understand how big the niche "technically literate to run their own e-commerce business, but selling on Amazon for other reasons" is, then how your operation would answer those "other r…

You can always do what bookshop.org did and appeal to social justice and hipster oppression. Talk about supporting "small business" and pretend that everyone's not just dropshipping from asia.

I don't think you know too much about how the book retail industry works. If people are dropshipping from anywhere, they're dropshipping from Ingram, which is in the US. Some of the stuff they carry might be printed in Asia, but it's not shipping directly from there to individual US customers. If I had to guess, this is how I'd expect bookshop.org to be fulfilling orders that they fulfill themselves. I can't remember if bookshop.org kicks any fulfillment to its indie bookstore partners, but if they do, those stores are almost certainly using Ingram dropshipping or fulfilling from the store's in-store inventory.

That said, it's still not nearly as good for indie bookstores as just buying directly from the indie bookstore, but it's pretty far from your characterization.

Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon

#72

Post by Ndymium » Fri, Sep 02, 2022, 6:39 PM UTC

electric_mayhem wrote: post #66

Openbazaar is a thing. https://openbazaar.org/

Is it, really? The domain name doesn't resolve and Wikipedia talks about the project in past tense. Is it being developed?

Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon

#73

Post by boucher » Fri, Sep 02, 2022, 6:42 PM UTC

ryan29 wrote: post #46

eastbayjake wrote: post #30

Love open source projects in the eCommerce domain, especially ones that are JavaScript instead of PHP! Two pieces of feedback: - Using a copyleft license like AGPL makes this an automatic non-starter for most businesses, no matter how impressive your tech might be. You'll have a lot more luck with mid-size and enterprise adoption with an MIT license. - You've really built an Order Management System for marketplace us…

> - Using a copyleft license like AGPL makes this an automatic non-starter for most businesses, no matter how impressive your tech might be. You'll have a lot more luck with mid-size and enterprise adoption with an MIT license. What makes the AGPL unattractive? I thought it was basically just the GPL with a limitation on using the software to provide a SaaS product. You don't even have to contribute unpublished chang…

There's a lot of FUD out there about GPL licenses and they've become pretty unpopular over the last decade. There are trade-offs, but there's nothing wrong with using the AGPL if that aligns with your own goals and values.

Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon

#74

Post by bloblaw » Fri, Sep 02, 2022, 6:44 PM UTC

ryan29 wrote: post #46

eastbayjake wrote: post #30

Love open source projects in the eCommerce domain, especially ones that are JavaScript instead of PHP! Two pieces of feedback: - Using a copyleft license like AGPL makes this an automatic non-starter for most businesses, no matter how impressive your tech might be. You'll have a lot more luck with mid-size and enterprise adoption with an MIT license. - You've really built an Order Management System for marketplace us…

> - Using a copyleft license like AGPL makes this an automatic non-starter for most businesses, no matter how impressive your tech might be. You'll have a lot more luck with mid-size and enterprise adoption with an MIT license. What makes the AGPL unattractive? I thought it was basically just the GPL with a limitation on using the software to provide a SaaS product. You don't even have to contribute unpublished chang…

Here's Google's stance on why they ban AGPL software: https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/using/agpl...

> The primary risk presented by AGPL is that any product or service that depends on AGPL-licensed code, or includes anything copied or derived from AGPL-licensed code, may be subject to the virality of the AGPL license.

> This viral effect requires that the complete corresponding source code of the product or service be released to the world under the AGPL license. This is triggered if the product or service can be accessed over a remote network interface, so it does not even require that the product or service is actually distributed.

> Because Google's core products are services that users interact with over a remote network interface (Search, Gmail, Maps, YouTube), the consequences of an engineer accidentally depending on AGPL for one of these services are so great that we maintain an aggressively-broad ban on all AGPL software to doubly-ensure that AGPL could never be incorporated in these services in any manner.

FWIW, every company I've ever worked at bans AGPL products / code.

Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon

#75

Post by sandeepeecs » Fri, Sep 02, 2022, 6:44 PM UTC

in india they are doing some thing called ONDC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Network_for_Digital_Comme...

ONDC is not an application, an intermediary, or software, but a set of specifications designed to foster open interchange and connections between shoppers, technology platforms, and retailers.[3] Technological self reliance, demand for level playing field mainly from small retailers, lower the barrier of entry and discovery online, adoption of open digital ecosystem across key sectors and fixing the non-competitive behavior of big ecommerce firms like Amazon and Flipkart to capture the US$810 billion domestic retail market led to its creation.[4] Designed to keep check on Big Tech companies from violating Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) (Amendment) Rules, 2021 due to concentration of market power by integrating them into an open-source decentralised network where data portability will break data silos while data interoperability will allow innovation.

Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon

#76

Post by boucher » Fri, Sep 02, 2022, 6:45 PM UTC

light_hue_1 wrote: post #67

ryan29 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Using a copyleft license like AGPL makes this an automatic non-starter for most businesses, no matter how impressive your tech might be. You'll have a lot more luck with mid-size and enterprise adoption with an MIT license. What makes the AGPL unattractive? I thought it was basically just the GPL with a limitation on using the software to provide a SaaS product. You don't even have to contribute unpublished chang…

AGPL is banned from every corporation I have ever seen. Because it's viral even when it is used internally, you might end up having to release things you never expected and that are very sensitive. It would be insane to allow anyone to use AGPL code in any corporate environment.

MongoDB is effectively licensed under the AGPL and seems to have no problem being used by corporations of all sizes.

Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon

#77

Post by adavid17 » Fri, Sep 02, 2022, 6:47 PM UTC

So this is really a open-source Shopify replacement, right? An OMS that lets you sell on multiple channels (website, Amazon, Instagram, Etsy…) and manage/fulfill those orders in one location?

I was confused at first by your title (open source Amazon) which seemed like it was going to be a e-commerce marketplace like Amazon.com - but it seems like that’s the 2nd step.

Why does a new e-commerce marketplace also require a new open-source OMS? OMS’s have a lot of seller lock-in, but it seems like way less lift to have OpenSourceAmazon.com be a channel sellers using Shopify’s OMS can sell on with a few simple steps on Shopify.

Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon

#78

Post by ZekeSulastin » Fri, Sep 02, 2022, 6:51 PM UTC

boucher wrote: post #76

light_hue_1 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AGPL is banned from every corporation I have ever seen. Because it's viral even when it is used internally, you might end up having to release things you never expected and that are very sensitive. It would be insane to allow anyone to use AGPL code in any corporate environment.

MongoDB is effectively licensed under the AGPL and seems to have no problem being used by corporations of all sizes.

Wouldn’t those corporations just purchase the commercial license MongoDB offers, though?

Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon

#79

Post by PeterZaitsev » Fri, Sep 02, 2022, 6:56 PM UTC

boucher wrote: post #76

light_hue_1 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AGPL is banned from every corporation I have ever seen. Because it's viral even when it is used internally, you might end up having to release things you never expected and that are very sensitive. It would be insane to allow anyone to use AGPL code in any corporate environment.

MongoDB is effectively licensed under the AGPL and seems to have no problem being used by corporations of all sizes.

MongoDB is licenses as SSPL which is non Open Source license all together

BUT this is only if you are not paying for MongoDB. If you do chances are you're using MongoDB Enterprise which is licensed under commercial license or MongoDB Atlas all together

Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon

#80

Post by hosh » Fri, Sep 02, 2022, 6:57 PM UTC

I think this is a great idea. I am for moving closer to local-first infrastructure.

For this to work, businesses would have to hire IT personnel or a consultant to implement and maintain it. There is also how much this can synergize with self-hosting.

One of the things I'm looking at doing are distributed software forges and "community supported software" (that uses open-source and free software as its base).

Also, there was an article posted here about the semantic web and a mention of something called the "data mesh". I think being able to interchange data will be important. Without that, then you're still locked into the software and possibly the vendor customized things for you.