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I am doing a startup (putting virtual machines on the web)

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Re: I am doing a startup (putting virtual machines on the web)

#91

Post by pkrumins »

surki wrote: post #33
pkrumins wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, right here: "You must install TS Web Access on a computer that is running Windows Server 2008." With stackvm you don't have to install anything, no plugins, not even flash and you don't need a modern web browser. We're making our software work in all the browsers, even as old IE as 5.5.

OK, didn't see that one. But technically it should be possible to do that(i.e., pure web rendering through JS) for TS as well. What I meant to ask was - how does it compare using VNC against RDP. Probably you have through and rejected RDP, so was curious to know the technical details. (xrdp for Linux exists as well)

To be honest, we haven't looked at RDP yet. We're been building everything on top of VNC. We did not look because we didn't have the necessary libraries written like node-bufferlist (for easy binary protocol parsing) and dnode (for sending stuff around easily). But now that we have, we'll soon look into RDP.

Re: I am doing a startup (putting virtual machines on the web)

#92

Post by pkrumins »

theBobMcCormick wrote: post #49

Have you considered offering a customer self hosted option? It sounds like you could easily position it as a lightweight alternative to Citrix and Windows Terminal Services.

Sure, since the software is opensource, anyone can set it up and use it for self hosted vms.

Re: I am doing a startup (putting virtual machines on the web)

#93

Post by pkrumins »

gsk wrote: post #50

Excellent execution. I'd certainly be interested in the paid service when it comes out. The 100% opensource idea is probably a distraction you can do without at the moment. I want the paid service to be great. I won't care if it is opensource or not.

The 100% opensource is actually very motivating. We want to create new libs that everyone else can use, then the same people who use it contribute back and fix bugs for us. It's lovely.

And we can also reuse our libs later in more projects. Very awesome.

Re: I am doing a startup (putting virtual machines on the web)

#95

Post by bretthoerner »

runT1ME wrote: post #85
bretthoerner wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You only have to sign it over if you want it in the official distribution, which I suppose most normal contributors do. But if someone (competitor or not) forks and adds SuperAwesomeFeature (without signing the copyright over), pkrumins can't pull that into his and license it commercially. It'd have to only exist in his AGPLv3 version, which sounds like hell.

Sounds like a problem with any OS license, not just AGPL...

Any GPL-like license, yes. But people like to bring up the AGPL because it means "Muhahaha, if they ever run it as a service over the net it means they have to share their source!" as if it has any benefit to their commercial product.

Re: I am doing a startup (putting virtual machines on the web)

#96

Post by SnowLprd »

blueberry wrote: post #58
SnowLprd wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely disagree with this idea. If you can avoid browser plugins without major issue, and it seems you have been successful at that so far, by all means continue to do so. Not only will the technorati appreciate not having to install yet another piece of (usually unnecessary) software, but corporate customers will be more inclined to deploy in their environments if it means there won't be another piece of softwar…

curious: Did you ever have to access computers using a web interface remote desktop client? Very few of them are good and does the job. Anyone who wants to do something real would no doubt install the plugin. Also in the winXP demo there was obviously a lag between the real cursor and the cursor on VM. It might not seem annoying until you need to use it for an extended period of time. I agree that they should avoid p…

Hmm. Where to start...

1. This isn't a web-based remote desktop client. 2. Your concept of "something real" is clearly different from mine. 3. Their app appears to work very well, in my opinion, without having to resort to browser plugin messiness. 4. This particular solution's primary value proposition is that it will work on almost any recent browser, without other installed software.

Re: I am doing a startup (putting virtual machines on the web)

#97

Post by runT1ME »

bretthoerner wrote: post #95
runT1ME wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a problem with any OS license, not just AGPL...

Any GPL-like license, yes. But people like to bring up the AGPL because it means "Muhahaha, if they ever run it as a service over the net it means they have to share their source!" as if it has any benefit to their commercial product.

This is an interesting thought exercise. I'm going to postulate that there is a benefit of the AGPL. Lets take a look at a company like JBoss, who may have benefited from the AGPL opposed to the LGPL they use.

A company who wanted to use their products for commercial use must provide a link somewhere on their page to the source, and share any mods. I think this is a big incentive to buy a commerical license from them, as it may look a little less than professional.

Assuming they don't though, and they publish their changes, there is still incentive for them to sign over the copywrite. If they want any backwards compatibility for updates and bug fixes (very important for a runtime platform), they need to. Its that or port everything back over.

Re: I am doing a startup (putting virtual machines on the web)

#98

Post by andreyf »

vijaydev wrote: post #71
andreyf wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's called placeholder test: http://diveintohtml5.org/forms.html

Thanks for pointing out the right term. However, the site does not use HTML5 placeholder and instead rely on plain JS to do the trick. What I wished for was a behavior like in the demo here: http://diveintohtml5.org/examples/input-placeholder.html

I'd just use placeholder, and screw anyone using an old browser. If people can upgrade their cell phones every year, they can install a modern browser. ;)

Re: I am doing a startup (putting virtual machines on the web)

#99

Post by peteforde »

I just wanted to say congrats, good luck and one of you should be a 51% partner. Trust me, it's painful if a 50% partner takes off.

Give this a read, paying specific attention to founder share vesting: http://startuplawyer.com/startup-issues/if-i-launched-a-star...

Re: I am doing a startup (putting virtual machines on the web)

#100

Post by theBobMcCormick »

bretthoerner wrote: post #78
runT1ME wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't a lot of Open Source companies make you sign copyright over? Or is that not the case. How did MySql handle this since they were dual licensed?

You only have to sign it over if you want it in the official distribution, which I suppose most normal contributors do. But if someone (competitor or not) forks and adds SuperAwesomeFeature (without signing the copyright over), pkrumins can't pull that into his and license it commercially. It'd have to only exist in his AGPLv3 version, which sounds like hell.

No, he can't pull their changes into his commercial version, and he'd probably want to avoid pulling their changes into his AGPL version. But, the hypothetical forkers would also have to re-apply their patches to pkrumins version each time he comes out with an update, assuming they want to incorporate his changes. It's close to a level playing field, with what I'd say is a slight advantage for pkrumins. As opposed to the situation he's in with any other Open Source license.

The only danger for pkrumins is if the "forker" is able to make his new fork the more popular, more advanced fork. That doesn't happen very often, and really, when it comes down to it it's just a case of being out-competed, which is a danger every business faces.

IMHO, it comes down to whether pkrumins is going to gain more (in mindshare, in community contributions, etc.) by going open source, vs entirely closed source. If he's going open source, AGPLv3 lets him minimize the leverage his source releases would give to a direct competitor, with no likely reduction in his upsides (i.e., the previously mentioned increase in mindshare, the community contributions, etc).

That's of course hypothesizing that there are upsides for him in going Open Source. Clearly he seems to think there are.

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