Open-source and the demise of proprietary software (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: Open-source and the demise of proprietary software (2018)

#51

Post by est31 » Wed, Dec 25, 2019, 4:00 PM UTC

kazinator wrote: post #10

Open 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…

> operating systems

The desktop OS market has basically two players: Windows and Mac OS. Desktop Linux is so small it's no relevant force at all.

> development tools

What about the intellij tools? They cost quite a large amount, and it's a monthly cost. MS Visual Studio is still around as well.

> databases

SAP is still a major force on the German market. The company behind it is amongst the 30 biggest public German companies.

Re: Open-source and the demise of proprietary software (2018)

#52

Post by ossworkerrights » Wed, Dec 25, 2019, 5:36 PM UTC

tluyben2 wrote: post #48

ossworkerrights wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Open source is enabling large corporations to establish monopolies. > Open source powers google and amazon yet the authors get little return from it. A different license could fix that but that goes against the philosophy; it would fix it though. People are trying that and a lot of other people are dead against it for good reasons, but how else can it be fixed? Even if you don't make it viral towards revenue, then…

>> Open source has killed indie development.

> In what way? I don't understand the remark.

Open source has reduced scarcity by such a high degree that writing quality code is valued next to nothing in monetary terms. Also, communities around closed source software have better ways to monetize, since there is usually no expectation from clients to get it for free as is from clients who are oss centric. Sure one can get the "opportunity" to work at FAANG just like their forefathers had the opportunity to work at Ford, Chrysler and other googles and amazons of the last generation, but that is not freedom. In other words, OSS reduced scarcity, shifted the balance towards a few centralised software powerhouses and has forced the vast majority of great engineers into 9 to 5 jobs.

EDIT: I am hugely in favor of open source as a means to share knowledge, but i am not in favor of OSS as free code for companies to monetise. Companies are entities that generate revenue, and for them, our effort to better the world is just a reduced investment cost, and nothing more.

Re: Open-source and the demise of proprietary software (2018)

#53

Post by sudosysgen » Wed, Dec 25, 2019, 6:12 PM UTC

est31 wrote: post #51

kazinator wrote: post #10

Open 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…

> operating systems The desktop OS market has basically two players: Windows and Mac OS. Desktop Linux is so small it's no relevant force at all. > development tools What about the intellij tools? They cost quite a large amount, and it's a monthly cost. MS Visual Studio is still around as well. > databases SAP is still a major force on the German market. The company behind it is amongst the 30 biggest public German c…

Intellij only succeeds due to open source community editions.

Re: Open-source and the demise of proprietary software (2018)

#54

Post by ken » Wed, Dec 25, 2019, 6:13 PM UTC

codr7 wrote: post #13

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. More important in my mind is that open source software is strictly higher quali…

I'm not sure what these are examples of. Is Android "open-source"? Is macOS?

I tried to compile Android from source this year, and spent weeks reading about it, finding distributions and tools to help, downloading packages, verifying signatures, and eventually running an enormous build command. I was ultimately unsuccessful. No matter what I fixed, there was something else that didn't work. Everything had the classic open-source excuses: it's being fixed soon, that's the wrong branch, you need to upgrade your tools, the docs are out of date, ...

Android today is not anything like Andy Rubin's "the definition of open" from 2010. As far as I can tell, it's basically SAAS for smartphones. A corporation gets the benefits of open-source, but users don't.

Re: Open-source and the demise of proprietary software (2018)

#55

Post by ken » Wed, Dec 25, 2019, 6:14 PM UTC

pyuser583 wrote: post #28

throwaway49872 wrote: post #17

More 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.

They realized there's a lot of technical people who like open-source software, so they found a way to insert themselves into the middle of that.

Re: Open-source and the demise of proprietary software (2018)

#56

Post by codr7 » Wed, Dec 25, 2019, 8:34 PM UTC

ken wrote: post #54

codr7 wrote: post #13

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. More important in my mind is that open source software is strictly higher quali…

I'm not sure what these are examples of. Is Android "open-source"? Is macOS? I tried to compile Android from source this year, and spent weeks reading about it, finding distributions and tools to help, downloading packages, verifying signatures, and eventually running an enormous build command. I was ultimately unsuccessful. No matter what I fixed, there was something else that didn't work. Everything had the classic…

They are examples of successful software consisting of proprietary code and commercial polish on top of an open source foundation. Which was my point, that even if it's not all open, it still results in higher quality software overall. So we still win, even if it's not the total domination RMS keeps insisting on.

Re: Open-source and the demise of proprietary software (2018)

#57

Post by throwaway49872 » Wed, Dec 25, 2019, 9:07 PM UTC

ken wrote: post #55

pyuser583 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They realized there's a lot of technical people who like open-source software, so they found a way to insert themselves into the middle of that.

The whole SaaS industry and most of "tech" companies are little more than middleman between open source software and end users.

Re: Open-source and the demise of proprietary software (2018)

#58

Post by jjeaff » Thu, Dec 26, 2019, 4:00 AM UTC

Edmond wrote: post #16

fierarul wrote: post #12

Earlier 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. 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.

It shouldn't be surprising that JetBrains is doing well. Even with sectors like developer tools, there is a lot of room for creating value-added solutions that are proprietary, and that customers will happily pay good money for.

I think it is surprising, especially considering the free open source options available that are not far behind intellij offerings like VS code.

Re: Open-source and the demise of proprietary software (2018)

#59

Post by z_open » Thu, Dec 26, 2019, 11:47 AM UTC

est31 wrote: post #51

kazinator wrote: post #10

Open 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…

> operating systems The desktop OS market has basically two players: Windows and Mac OS. Desktop Linux is so small it's no relevant force at all. > development tools What about the intellij tools? They cost quite a large amount, and it's a monthly cost. MS Visual Studio is still around as well. > databases SAP is still a major force on the German market. The company behind it is amongst the 30 biggest public German c…

You are picking out exceptions. The parent didn't say it's not possible to make money in these spaces, just that OSS is eating it up. And desktop operating systems are in the small minority of all operating systems in use today.

Re: Open-source and the demise of proprietary software (2018)

#60

Post by kgwxd » Thu, Dec 26, 2019, 1:10 PM UTC

fierarul wrote: post #12

kazinator wrote: post #10

Open 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.

JetBrains is in a unique position, they came from a time when closed IDEs were accepted. I doubt they could enter the market with the same business model today.