I'm not sure about the general thesis, but some of the history is questionable. For one thing, I assume gumby would disagree about Red Hat being "the first company to build a successful business on top of open-source software" (for values of "open-source" equal to "free"), even if though became successful enough to buy Cygnus.
Open-source and the demise of proprietary software (2018)
21–30 of 63 posts
Re: Open-source and the demise of proprietary software (2018)
#22I don't really buy into the political debate. The arguments for open source as applied to non-technical users don't really work as advertised from my experience. Sure, you could potentially find someone to maintain it if the version you depend on goes bottom up. But the contexts where that's the preferred solution are few and far between. More important in my mind is that open source software is strictly higher quali…
I don't really buy into the political debate. The arguments for open source as applied to non-technical users don't really work as advertised from my experience. Sure, you could potentially find someone to maintain it if the version you depend on goes bottom up. But the contexts where that's the preferred solution are few and far between.
People don't certainly exercised their right to modify the source code as often as their usage. It's certainly an important right, but less often than the right to use the software as the user see fit.
Arguably freedom zero is much more important in a world in which every business and companies are trying to nickel and dime you as an eternal income stream.
Re: Open-source and the demise of proprietary software (2018)
#23Ah, timescaledb. They are funny. I tried them really hard. I was rooting for them. Then it bit me: death by a thousand papercuts One of the many papercuts was actually more serious, to the point it was funny: I remember how in their stable versions, they had a humorous bug: if you did \copy instead of insert to a timescaledb, the timestamps looked right when you eyeballed them with a select, but acted wrong when you…
Hey there, glad you think we are funny, but sorry to hear you are having problems.
This problem you mentioned is new to me - have not seen it before. Did you file a Github issue for this? Happy to chat more there (or feel free to ping me directly - ajay (at) timescale.com).
Re: Open-source and the demise of proprietary software (2018)
#24Open source isn't eating all proprietary software. Open source is enabling proprietary software to be more profitable, because it makes free all the commodity pieces that are needed to make proprietary software work. Customers would otherwise have to pay for these things (in an ongoing manner) leaving less of their $$$ to spend on your payload. Open source powers SaaS which is so closed and proprietary that the user…
> Of course, if your business is selling operating systems, development tools, databases and other infrastructure stuff, then, yup, open source has eaten your business. I agree with what you said. With the caveat that some lucky few companies do seem to do well in this space too. Recently learned JetBrains (makers of IntelliJ) had $270M revenue/year and $100M net income in 2018.
Even they produce community editions of their software to drive up engagement.
In 1990s, you turned a blind eye to small-time piracy to get engagement. Now you can offer a much better deal.
Re: Open-source and the demise of proprietary software (2018)
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Of course, if your business is selling operating systems, development tools, databases and other infrastructure stuff, then, yup, open source has eaten your business. It seems like the rule is that open source is eating all-except-niche software.
So you’re saying everything except “operating systems, development tools, databases and other infrastructure stuff” is “niche software”? I’m not following, e.g., that would make Google and Facebook niche software?
They are extremely niche in a sense. There are very few other search engines (all much smaller), and there's no another Facebook.
The market just naturally gravitates to the biggest player.
Re: Open-source and the demise of proprietary software (2018)
#26This is a decent article that could stand on its own. It is also a PR piece by TimescaleDB which has all interest in convincing people/investors that an open-source company is a good deal: > (Disclaimer: Our company TimescaleDB is an open-source time-series database startup and shares investors with several of these companies, including Elastic, MongoDB, Hortonworks, Confluent, and Databricks.) There were more paragr…
This comment is really funny. The way we (TimescaleDB) try to convince people (and investors) is with our product, not blog posts. But we write blog posts to transparently share our learnings with the rest of the world. That's just the open-source way. :-)
Btw for others who are reading - contributing to open-source is still very much a way to build your career, travel the world, etc. I personally know people who are living their best lives because of this. It doesn't happen for everyone, but if you are early in your career then I very much recommend it.
Re: Open-source and the demise of proprietary software (2018)
#27I think the ”original idea” behind open source was to enable collaboration. If two companies both need accounting system and they don’t see accounting system as something that would bring them competitive advantage, why not build the system together.
In many other fields this collaboration is enabled through government. Companies pay taxes, taxes are used to fund infrastructure such as roads and railways.
If I remember right for example Apache Software Foundation had a requirement that core team for project should not come from just single company.
One way to categorize open source projects is to check how many companies really collaborate on the project. Is it a true joint effort or is it in practise dependent on one entity.
Re: Open-source and the demise of proprietary software (2018)
#28More like: Proprietary software reinvents itself as corporate-driven Open Source with SaaS Lock-In
Bingo.
Look at Microsoft. Used to charge an arm and leg for software. Then ran up against competition from Apple and Google.
2000s were not good for Microsoft.
They’re getting their act together now. But for a while they were very much old tech.
Re: Open-source and the demise of proprietary software (2018)
#29Open source isn't eating all proprietary software. Open source is enabling proprietary software to be more profitable, because it makes free all the commodity pieces that are needed to make proprietary software work. Customers would otherwise have to pay for these things (in an ongoing manner) leaving less of their $$$ to spend on your payload. Open source powers SaaS which is so closed and proprietary that the user…
Open source is enabling large corporations to establish monopolies.
Open source powers google and amazon yet the authors get little return from it.
Open source has killed indie development.
Re: Open-source and the demise of proprietary software (2018)
#30Open source isn't eating all proprietary software. Open source is enabling proprietary software to be more profitable, because it makes free all the commodity pieces that are needed to make proprietary software work. Customers would otherwise have to pay for these things (in an ongoing manner) leaving less of their $$$ to spend on your payload. Open source powers SaaS which is so closed and proprietary that the user…
Open source is enabling large corporations to establish monopolies. Open source powers google and amazon yet the authors get little return from it. Open source has killed indie development.
And we all get a better product because of it, moving the ship of humanity a little bit further along.