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Launch HN: Openbase (YC S20) – reviews and insights for open-source packages

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Re: Launch HN: Openbase (YC S20) – reviews and insights for open-source packages

#31

Post by liorgrossman »

sdesol wrote: post #18

This is cool and I appreciate software development insights is getting some love. Full disclosure, I wouldn't say I'm working on the same thing, but we definitely have some overlap, when it comes to software development insights, which is gaining steam. Your dashboard gave me some interesting food for thought, so I'll do the same and share with you, some of the things that I'm working on, that you are free to incorpo…

Thank you for sharing this!

As you mentioned, we're focused on the discovery part, and package insights is a part of that, but so are reviews, ratings, search, and categorization.

Your tool looks like a great solution for software teams to get insights into their code and dev processes, this also connects with the "developer velocity" trend I've heard several times in recent years.

Looks like quite a lot of work too, kudos!

Is it in production with some customers?

Re: Launch HN: Openbase (YC S20) – reviews and insights for open-source packages

#32

Post by jerrygoyal »

I've been doing js development for years and feel the same pain when I need to look for the npm package with the right balance of functionalities,size,active development,popularity etc. A dedicated site for package recommendation would definitely save lots of time, currently, I use npmtrends.com for this. I quickly checked for packages on openbase.io for rendering table and found out there were packages only for vuejs. why to exclude react packages? I also understand it's an mvp but Package results sorting should be there. Reviews would definitely help but I'd also prefer to see likes/upvotes on those reviews to get extra validation.

On a side note how are you ensuring that all popular packages should be included in your database? Otherwise it wouldn't make sense if user needs to crosscheck on google/npm/github like in this case of rendering table.

I'll be regularly using openbase for package discovery. Wish you all the best!

Re: Launch HN: Openbase (YC S20) – reviews and insights for open-source packages

#33

Post by liorgrossman »

ralfhn wrote: post #21

This is neat. Vetting dependencies is an essential yet understated task, and there are simply no existent tools on the market. I started creating a similar tool on the side (by starting I mean I just bought a domain name ;-) depvet.io) Here are some random ideas I've been thinking about, maybe some of it would be useful to you: Possible monetization strategies: You mentioned "paid promotion of packages" as a way to m…

You know what they say? It's not a startup until you buy the domain name ;-)

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

We did give the enterprise route a consideration - after all we have all those insights for all these dependencies, that could be really useful in the context of an organization. However, we decided not to pursue it since it seems this market is a bit crowded, with many security/license/dependency monitoring and management tools for the Enterprise. I agree we could come up with something unique (e.g. integrating it with insights and ratings as your said), this is probably not the first path we'd pursue in terms of monetization, there are other monetization models that I think might be easier to develop & test.

100% agree on GitHub doing an excellent job and being innovative and nimble even as part of a big company (Microsoft). While I think it would be fairly simple for GitHub to introduce more metrics and insights to repos, I think building a reviews/recommendation website requires a different mindset, focus, and essentially. Also, it doesn't necessarily fits in with their business model (hosting of repos and providing services around that).

Great point about the dependencies! We currently only display direct dependencies, but when assessing the health of a library, it's important to assess all transitive dependencies too, we've somehow neglected that, but will incorporate that into our roadmap.

Thanks for all the ideas! We're a small startup, and we're still putting a lot of our hypotheses (re product and business) to tests. Let's see what the future holds for Openbase.

Re: Launch HN: Openbase (YC S20) – reviews and insights for open-source packages

#34

Post by sdesol »

liorgrossman wrote: post #31
sdesol wrote: post #18

This is cool and I appreciate software development insights is getting some love. Full disclosure, I wouldn't say I'm working on the same thing, but we definitely have some overlap, when it comes to software development insights, which is gaining steam. Your dashboard gave me some interesting food for thought, so I'll do the same and share with you, some of the things that I'm working on, that you are free to incorpo…

Thank you for sharing this! As you mentioned, we're focused on the discovery part, and package insights is a part of that, but so are reviews, ratings, search, and categorization. Your tool looks like a great solution for software teams to get insights into their code and dev processes, this also connects with the "developer velocity" trend I've heard several times in recent years. Looks like quite a lot of work too,…

> Looks like quite a lot of work too, kudos!

Thanks. I don't think people realize how complex it is to generate actionable code insights. Indexing code is easy, indexing history is an order of a magnitude more difficult, in my opinion.

> Is it in production with some customers?

No, the product isn't finished yet (I pivoted a bit from my initial idea). My goal is to have it ready by the end of this month, so that I can start indexing and making the indexed information publicly available. I was hoping to have a docker image/bare metal install packages available by the end of this month, but I don't think this will be feasible.

Right now I'm continuously indexing 4,000 repos, but the challenge is really with GitHub and rate limits. When I have the public site up and running, I'll reach out to GitHub to see what can be done, as I would like to make the indexed information freely available for anybody to tap into, including Openbase, if I'm capturing things that you guys aren't.

Re: Launch HN: Openbase (YC S20) – reviews and insights for open-source packages

#35

Post by liorgrossman »

lacker wrote: post #25
liorgrossman wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a great question, I agree this might become a problem down the line, when bad players might try to pressurize package maintainers into fixing problems. We haven't encountered this problem yet, and believe most developers are decent enough to honestly rate a package based on their experience, as opposed to using it as a leverage. Few things we're thinking about: * Allowing maintainers to flag such reviews (for…

Maybe you could let people put bounties on issues, and pay the developers.

Interesting, that is something that we had in mind in the past. I know there are few good websites doing that, starting with simple bounties like IssueHunt and ending with more complex models like Tidelift. I'm not sure how well those work, honestly.

One similar thing we were thinking of is giving maintainers the platform to easily provide paid support if they want to. Not sure about that one either, although I know some companies/people make money from providing support for OSS.

Re: Launch HN: Openbase (YC S20) – reviews and insights for open-source packages

#36

Post by liorgrossman »

jerrygoyal wrote: post #32

I've been doing js development for years and feel the same pain when I need to look for the npm package with the right balance of functionalities,size,active development,popularity etc. A dedicated site for package recommendation would definitely save lots of time, currently, I use npmtrends.com for this. I quickly checked for packages on openbase.io for rendering table and found out there were packages only for vuej…

Thank you, we all share the same pain with package search.

The categories curation in Openbase includes a category, but also a framework. So as you mentioned, under Table libraries, you could have React, Vue, Svelte libraries etc.

We currently filter those by framework, but unfortunately, we didn't have the time to fully implement this page prior to the launch.

What should be in this page is a dropdown where you can choose from 10 different frameworks, and see the results for that specific framework. That dropdown, along with the URL routing to support it, is still missing from the product. It's one of the most important things on our roadmap, so expect to see it on Openbase soon.

Unfortunately, there's no way to 100% ensure all packages are included inside a category since the curation is manual, but I would say we do base it on extensive Google/npm/GitHub search. In the future, we want to involve the community in the curation process, so anyone can suggest new packages for a category or categories to a package. Not a simple thing to implement, but we chose this challenge since we do feel that categorization can provide a lot of value.

Re: Launch HN: Openbase (YC S20) – reviews and insights for open-source packages

#37

Post by liorgrossman »

lend000 wrote: post #28
liorgrossman wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a lot of work. In terms of making money - we're thinking about paid promotion of packages: allowing maintainers (companies and individuals) to promote their packages, we found there's a big need for that. We want to limit it to a single (clearly marked) promoted package for each category. Obviously, we would just surface the promoted package, but the package reviews, insights, and metrics are obviously untouche…

Why not charge the maintainers themselves to advertise validation by your brand (once you have established that trusted brand)? I mean, I see that you are attacking this problem from the analysis and search perspective, which is great and well needed, but there is an intersecting need for security validation and preventing malicious package updates. There is more liability that way, but imo there is greater incentive…

That's a really interesting thought, we've never thought of this direction! Are there any successful products/companies with such business model (providing testing and certificates for money)

Re: Launch HN: Openbase (YC S20) – reviews and insights for open-source packages

#38

Post by ralfhn »

liorgrossman wrote: post #33
ralfhn wrote: post #21

This is neat. Vetting dependencies is an essential yet understated task, and there are simply no existent tools on the market. I started creating a similar tool on the side (by starting I mean I just bought a domain name ;-) depvet.io) Here are some random ideas I've been thinking about, maybe some of it would be useful to you: Possible monetization strategies: You mentioned "paid promotion of packages" as a way to m…

You know what they say? It's not a startup until you buy the domain name ;-) Thanks for sharing your thoughts! We did give the enterprise route a consideration - after all we have all those insights for all these dependencies, that could be really useful in the context of an organization. However, we decided not to pursue it since it seems this market is a bit crowded, with many security/license/dependency monitoring…

Best of luck, sir!

Re: Launch HN: Openbase (YC S20) – reviews and insights for open-source packages

#39

Post by liorgrossman »

jameson wrote: post #29
liorgrossman wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a lot of work. In terms of making money - we're thinking about paid promotion of packages: allowing maintainers (companies and individuals) to promote their packages, we found there's a big need for that. We want to limit it to a single (clearly marked) promoted package for each category. Obviously, we would just surface the promoted package, but the package reviews, insights, and metrics are obviously untouche…

> we found there's a big need for that. Would you mind elaborating on this comment? What are some reasons why one would pay to promote their package? edit: Great stuff btw. Would love to see this for Python/Java packages

Thank you! We actually have a waiting list for those: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScexiehdwDWJwxZJym8...

Some use cases where package maintainers might be willing to pay to promote their packages: * API companies that want to promote their product, mainly newcomers to the market that look for developers' mindshare, but probably incumbents as well. * DB and other infrastructure companies that have packages (drivers, libraries, tooling) * SaaS companies who's users are developers (e.g. monitoring, logging, analytics) * Some indie developers who are willing to pay a few bucks to get those first thousand users to their package and get it off the ground. * Software development firms/agencies that build packages as a means of showcasing their expertise, use the package as a way to build reputation and get more clients

Re: Launch HN: Openbase (YC S20) – reviews and insights for open-source packages

#40

Post by liorgrossman »

ralfhn wrote: post #38
liorgrossman wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what they say? It's not a startup until you buy the domain name ;-) Thanks for sharing your thoughts! We did give the enterprise route a consideration - after all we have all those insights for all these dependencies, that could be really useful in the context of an organization. However, we decided not to pursue it since it seems this market is a bit crowded, with many security/license/dependency monitoring…

Best of luck, sir!

Thank you!
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