Death of an open-source business model • Hacker News Board

Re: Death of an open-source business model

#11

Post by freeqaz » Wed, Dec 09, 2020, 5:48 PM UTC

hacknat wrote: post #5

I disagree with this article’s premise that all software is services-based. There are lots of open-core business models that can’t be eaten by the cloud providers, because they aren’t services to be spun up. Almost all of the CNCF-based businesses are complex plug-in models that the CPs can’t just make a button for.

AWS has a hosted version of Kubernetes and Envoy now, and those are both CNCF projects. Other CNCF projects like NATS and Argo have equivalents on AWS today.

Even if they're complex and not one-button click to drop in, the cloud providers seem keen on running managed versions of these projects.

What projects come to mind as being "immune" to this problem, out of curiosity?

Re: Death of an open-source business model

#12

Post by brandmeyer » Wed, Dec 09, 2020, 5:48 PM UTC

fsflover wrote: post #8

brandmeyer wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't help with the revenue problem, it only helps ensure that any feature additions flow back upstream.

Any examples where it was a problem?

The article gave a couple of (in)famous examples...

Re: Death of an open-source business model

#13

Post by xenocratus » Wed, Dec 09, 2020, 5:49 PM UTC

lukestateson wrote: post #10

[del]

Title doesn't say "open source is dead" - it says "Death of an open source business model", I'd say those two are quite different...

Re: Death of an open-source business model

#14

Post by unreal37 » Wed, Dec 09, 2020, 5:52 PM UTC

100% agree. Make a thing, and charge a reasonable amount for it.

And if someone wants to make the same category of product free and open source, that's cool too. Live and let live.

Re: Death of an open-source business model

#15

Post by lock-free » Wed, Dec 09, 2020, 5:52 PM UTC

In the back of the head this gives me an idea for a marketplace startup for software utilities but I know it's been tried before and died. I don't know how to align the incentives of creators to where we can make a marketplace where open source is lucrative by design.

But I don't think it's impossible, just the social hurdles haven't been cleared yet. Not much technology to throw down on the problem.

Re: Death of an open-source business model

#16

Post by selfhoster11 » Wed, Dec 09, 2020, 5:54 PM UTC

abetusk wrote: post #4

Mapbox releases Mapbox GL JS v2 under a proprietary license whereas v1 (presumably) was under an "open core" business model. (Mapbox v1 and v2 are graphics card enhanced mapping libraries?). The author of the article's thesis is that this is "an end of an era" of Open Core business models (putting core technology under a free/libre licensing and charging for extra proprietary features). I'm very curious as to what ot…

I feel like Gitlab will try to pull an Atlassian in the future. They already said they are changing focus to their cloud-based offering over the on-prem version.

Re: Death of an open-source business model

#17

Post by fsflover » Wed, Dec 09, 2020, 5:55 PM UTC

brandmeyer wrote: post #12

fsflover wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any examples where it was a problem?

The article gave a couple of (in)famous examples...

I just was thinking that AGPL would defend against companies like Microsoft who avoid (A)GPL at all costs.

Re: Death of an open-source business model

#18

Post by infinity0 » Wed, Dec 09, 2020, 5:59 PM UTC

I wish there was a FOSS license with a clause along the lines of:

- if your company makes >X revenue a year, give us some of it.

Ofc, they (FSF/OSI/DFSG) would have to relax their FOSS definition(s), but with more projects dying in this way hopefully more FOSS organisations will take heed and think about this.

Ofc, the wording of the license has to be precise enough to avoid something like fobbing off the servers to technically be controlled by subsidiaries with 0 revenue.

Re: Death of an open-source business model

#19

Post by spurdoman77 » Wed, Dec 09, 2020, 6:01 PM UTC

xenocratus wrote: post #13

lukestateson wrote: post #10

[del]

Title doesn't say "open source is dead" - it says "Death of an open source business model", I'd say those two are quite different...

Yeah, and only one business model is dead. There are others and will be. Use open source the smart way and you can make money.

Re: Death of an open-source business model

#20

Post by claytonjy » Wed, Dec 09, 2020, 6:04 PM UTC

selfhoster11 wrote: post #16

abetusk wrote: post #4

Mapbox releases Mapbox GL JS v2 under a proprietary license whereas v1 (presumably) was under an "open core" business model. (Mapbox v1 and v2 are graphics card enhanced mapping libraries?). The author of the article's thesis is that this is "an end of an era" of Open Core business models (putting core technology under a free/libre licensing and charging for extra proprietary features). I'm very curious as to what ot…

I feel like Gitlab will try to pull an Atlassian in the future. They already said they are changing focus to their cloud-based offering over the on-prem version.

I worry you're right, and while I think it's bad for what it signals about business model viability, I'm not sure it's bad for how I use GitLab.

Do the couple dozen devs at my company really need an internally-hosted version, or should we just pay for the cloud offering and supply our own runners? Seems easy to frame as a wash.