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HashiCorp CEO Predicts OSS-Free Silicon Valley

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Re: HashiCorp CEO Predicts OSS-Free Silicon Valley

#31

Post by mathverse »

echelon wrote: post #21
kervantas wrote: post #7

> Says Linux Foundation's OpenTofu adoption "tragic" Yeah, for them, not for the community that they tried to fuck over.

Where's this same vitriol directed at Amazon, Google, et al.? They've built huge cloud platforms on the backs of open source. These are highly profitable machines that siphon up so much free labor and give very little back. Instead we attack HashiCorp, whose entire product is going to fall into disuse over a fork of the very thing they built. Why is that? I'm angry at AWS - it's literally just open source software ru…

Big Tech throws free stuff people all the time and they usually being the one winning product / lib everybody is using. People just started to expect the same thing from all companies no matter the size and profitability. It's madness.

Re: HashiCorp CEO Predicts OSS-Free Silicon Valley

#32

Post by reactordev »

MenhirMike wrote: post #26
reactordev wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. The fact that they even mentioned this shows their true motivation behind the piece. It’s not that OSS is bad, it’s THAT OSS is bad (for us)

It's also essentially a public admission that OpenTofu REALLY worries them, instead of just something to sit out or combat by making a better product.

Outside of Vault, Terraform was their bread and butter. It’s understandable they would be scared of OpenTofu. Certain things that are novel have a tendency to leave the nest. This is one of those cases. They could go the Docker route, provide paid support and extra tooling around it, but decided to wage war against OSS instead.

Re: HashiCorp CEO Predicts OSS-Free Silicon Valley

#34

Post by jen20 »

teekert wrote: post #24
jen20 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd imagine it looks a lot like BUSL: source is available, and fine for use in non-competing ways, but using it to compete against the commercialisation efforts that pay for primary development is not allowed. Basically every successful open source company other than Red Hat at this point has the model in one way or another.

That sounds reasonable indeed. But competing against the commercialization efforts is just so vague. It’s also a huge turn off for enterprises, they are already afraid of the GPL, I think enterprises will not touch BUSL code. It’s nice for self hosters perhaps. But I for one am always thinking about how I can commercialize my self hosting skills (and have been somewhat successful here and there).

I don't know I'd agree that it's vague - the triggering conditions in BUSL are instance specific so each instance requires evaluation. The HashiCorp provisions are perfectly clear.

What I do wish is that all companies who have this kind of license would also have a clearly priced, clearly defined "pay us X and you can use the OSS bits under this commercial license instead" model, for exactly the reason you describe though.

Re: HashiCorp CEO Predicts OSS-Free Silicon Valley

#35

Post by vetinari »

jarym wrote: post #16

“HashiCorp’s technology was critical to the modern cloud” I would challenge that. Their tech gained a stronghold because it had a liberal OSS license and thus a community formed around it. Their technology itself isn’t critical, it was just popular to such a degree that it was almost standard in a lot of settings. Now they’ve upset that community we see they’re not as critical as they think they are - OpenTofu exists…

> If I was starting a software business today I simply wouldn’t open source on day one. I might lose some of the crowd that only uses OSS but I’d just have to focus on others for a while.

Or you could use GPL3 (for client-side) or AGPL (if it could be hosted). OSS crowd will be still happy and "leechers" are prevented.

Re: HashiCorp CEO Predicts OSS-Free Silicon Valley

#36

Post by intelVISA »

aeyes wrote: post #25

... if you want the whole pie. The open source business model works if the service you provide is to sell consulting, implementation, certification... If you want the whole SaaS pie then why are you going open source in the first place? To have the community develop the ecosystem for free for a decade making an SaaS business viable before you pull the rug?

Pretty much, this article should read "man shocked to discover he cannot have his SaaS cake and eat it"

Re: HashiCorp CEO Predicts OSS-Free Silicon Valley

#37

Post by WestCoastJustin »

worik wrote: post #30
WestCoastJustin wrote: post #10

This is a dumb title for a good article. In that it makes is seem like he is talking about OSS software. The software that powers the entire Silicon Valley tech empire. Linux and OSS power Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc, right down to your 1-2 person startups. He's not talking about that -- he's talking about open source software sales model used by companies like Redhat and HashiCorp. The threat here is that you're d…

> Then you have XYZ startup appears, they takes your open-source code, repackages it and then sells enterprise features, professional services, and support. That is a feature of the model, not a bug. Exactly that happened to Git. Good. Happening at last in social media with Mastodon The point is to have a lot of smaller companies rather than one or two huge companies playing "lock in"

Reality is it is sort of mixed. For the OSS company actually building the product, you end up playing whack-a-mole in that anyone can spin up a competitor over the weekend. Look at what happened with Docker. They completely changed the landscape of running code locally and in production and was run out of town. Everyone and their dog took the code and re-packaged it and competed with Docker. Then compare that with VMware, they completely changed the landscape of running code locally and in production but they were able to protect that value and thrive as a company. There is definitely a lesson in there.

Sure, maybe this is a feature but if you're about to launch an open source sales model company you probably need to think really hard about that idea.

Re: HashiCorp CEO Predicts OSS-Free Silicon Valley

#38

Post by josephcsible »

markphip wrote: post #28

There is nothing inherently wrong with HashiCorp's license. What IS wrong is building a product and community and accepting contributions based on an OSS license and THEN changing that license when it no longer suits them. The reality is that whether it was HashiCorp, Elastic, Mongo or any of the others that have gone down this path, if they had just started out with their BSL-type license they likely never would hav…

> There is nothing inherently wrong with HashiCorp's license.

Proprietary software licenses are inherently wrong, though.

Re: HashiCorp CEO Predicts OSS-Free Silicon Valley

#40

Post by josephcsible »

api wrote: post #5

This has been brewing for a very long time, and he's by no means the only person or even the best person making these points. Open source dates back to the 1980s but really took flight in the 1990s with Linux, Linux distributions, and the mainstreaming of the Internet. Back then it was mostly a movement for software freedom and openness in contrast to closed source software like Windows and macOS. While it obviously…

> Against this model open source software is offering zero resistance.

Pushover licenses like MIT offer zero resistance to it, but that's just a reason to use better licenses like AGPLv3 instead, not to abandon open source entirely.

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