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Open Source does not win by being cheaper

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Re: Open Source does not win by being cheaper

#151

Post by brabel »

martypitt wrote: post #144

Fantastic article. I'd love to see more people championing statements like "Profit, not usage, is a measure of success". I think there's a stigma about open source projects being run as commercial, profit-generating businesses, and I'm very happy to see more people championing the Commerical, Profitable OSS cause -- which everyone in the ecosystem benefits from. (More Profit == Keep Building More OSS). I happen to li…

Open Core is a really risky bet. Any dedicated developer can fork your project and add the Premium feature they like the most, and then there's nothing your company can do about it.

When people use an open source project, they usually expect everything in the project to be open source and will go to great lengths to not pay you, including sabotaging any of your efforts to try to get paid.

Re: Open Source does not win by being cheaper

#152

Post by brabel »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #50

"Profit" is a strange and ambiguous term here. I've been running an open source, libre project for closing in on 24 years now, and generating revenue from it for about 17 years. There's never been any "profit", but there has been revenue. I regard profit as what's left of the revenue after you pay the people who work on the project and any expenses, which is the way most corporations and accountants would view it. Th…

I am kind of amused to see someone here on HN, of all places, who allegedly runs a business use scare quotes around the word profit and make it sound like there's something ambiguous about it.

Re: Open Source does not win by being cheaper

#153

Post by TeMPOraL »

dazed_confused wrote: post #86
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #50

"Profit" is a strange and ambiguous term here. I've been running an open source, libre project for closing in on 24 years now, and generating revenue from it for about 17 years. There's never been any "profit", but there has been revenue. I regard profit as what's left of the revenue after you pay the people who work on the project and any expenses, which is the way most corporations and accountants would view it. Th…

> Also, as is typical for things linked from HN, this whole article seems very web-y and SaaS-y. There are other kinds of open source projects, believe it or not. You mean the rest of computing...

However little that is. What isn't implicitly a SaaS these days anyway? :/

Re: Open Source does not win by being cheaper

#154

Post by martypitt »

xtracto wrote: post #148
martypitt wrote: post #144

Fantastic article. I'd love to see more people championing statements like "Profit, not usage, is a measure of success". I think there's a stigma about open source projects being run as commercial, profit-generating businesses, and I'm very happy to see more people championing the Commerical, Profitable OSS cause -- which everyone in the ecosystem benefits from. (More Profit == Keep Building More OSS). I happen to li…

I hate these new "open core" freemium companies. The best "open source " business is one that gets profit from doing something else and publishes some open source software on the side . Like react. Open core are just companies that want to throw around the "look we are cool, open source" mantra , but in reality are dealers giving you the first dose free to hook you up in their business. Where would we be if apache, l…

> Open core are just companies that want to throw around the "look we are cool, open source" mantra , but in reality are dealers giving you the first dose free to hook you up in their business.

Strong disagree.

There are real material benefits to companies making their source code available - lots of them are espoused in this discussion. Things like Auditability, Debuggability, etc.

These aren't about appearances, it's about giving additional benefits to the users.

But it HAS to be backed by a sustainable business model. Otherwise, it's a hobby. Open Core, and other similar models, are about delivering the benefits of open source, with the security of knowing there's a viable business model sitting behind it.

Also, as a community - we should be far more open to paying open source companies than we are. Statements like:

> but in reality are dealers giving you the first dose free to hook you up in their business.

Exactly!

It's a business. They're paying salaries of people to create things to give you value. You should pay for it.

Re: Open Source does not win by being cheaper

#155

Post by martypitt »

brabel wrote: post #151
martypitt wrote: post #144

Fantastic article. I'd love to see more people championing statements like "Profit, not usage, is a measure of success". I think there's a stigma about open source projects being run as commercial, profit-generating businesses, and I'm very happy to see more people championing the Commerical, Profitable OSS cause -- which everyone in the ecosystem benefits from. (More Profit == Keep Building More OSS). I happen to li…

Open Core is a really risky bet. Any dedicated developer can fork your project and add the Premium feature they like the most, and then there's nothing your company can do about it. When people use an open source project, they usually expect everything in the project to be open source and will go to great lengths to not pay you, including sabotaging any of your efforts to try to get paid.

I think this is a great point.

I'd hate to see Open Source become even less commercially viable then it is today. I don't know the answer here, but I agree with the risks you've highlighted.

I think part of the issue is in mindsets of the community, where they see any Github source project, and immediately think "I'm entitled to use this without paying". I doubt that attitidue will shift, but I think it damages the ability for more companies to take a bet on being open.

Ultimately, when that happens - the users of the platform lose out.

Re: Open Source does not win by being cheaper

#156

Post by martypitt »

xtracto wrote: post #148
martypitt wrote: post #144

Fantastic article. I'd love to see more people championing statements like "Profit, not usage, is a measure of success". I think there's a stigma about open source projects being run as commercial, profit-generating businesses, and I'm very happy to see more people championing the Commerical, Profitable OSS cause -- which everyone in the ecosystem benefits from. (More Profit == Keep Building More OSS). I happen to li…

I hate these new "open core" freemium companies. The best "open source " business is one that gets profit from doing something else and publishes some open source software on the side . Like react. Open core are just companies that want to throw around the "look we are cool, open source" mantra , but in reality are dealers giving you the first dose free to hook you up in their business. Where would we be if apache, l…

> The best "open source " business is one that gets profit from doing something else and publishes some open source software on the side . Like react.

How is "Be a company that harvests personal data for profit, and publishes a javascript library on the side" a good model?

And, how is it better than:

"We build this thing. It's all we do. Here's the source. If you use some features, you gotta give us money?"

Re: Open Source does not win by being cheaper

#157

Post by TeMPOraL »

jmpeax wrote: post #125

> Minio is a great alternative to companies mindful of who has access to user data. Of course, AWS claims that AWS personnel doesn’t have direct access to customer data, but by being closed-source, that statement is just a function of trust. Can't a company claim to be hosting something via open-source software but using a closed-source in-house software masquerading with the same API endpoints as the open-source ver…

Yeah, this particular argument makes no sense, even though it's surprisingly common. "Open source" doesn't mean a thing in SaaS. It means the vendor is sharing what they tell you is the source code running behind their service. Even if it's exactly the code - which it may not be - it's unlikely to be the only code running behind the "official" service. And you ain't gonna build your own copy and deploy on their servers. Open source really means something only when you self-host, otherwise it may just as well be proprietary, as everything depends on trust you have in the vendor (and possibly the contract you have with them).

Re: Open Source does not win by being cheaper

#158

Post by [deleted] »

brabel wrote: post #152
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #50

"Profit" is a strange and ambiguous term here. I've been running an open source, libre project for closing in on 24 years now, and generating revenue from it for about 17 years. There's never been any "profit", but there has been revenue. I regard profit as what's left of the revenue after you pay the people who work on the project and any expenses, which is the way most corporations and accountants would view it. Th…

I am kind of amused to see someone here on HN, of all places, who allegedly runs a business use scare quotes around the word profit and make it sound like there's something ambiguous about it.

[deleted]

Re: Open Source does not win by being cheaper

#159

Post by [deleted] »

brabel wrote: post #152
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #50

"Profit" is a strange and ambiguous term here. I've been running an open source, libre project for closing in on 24 years now, and generating revenue from it for about 17 years. There's never been any "profit", but there has been revenue. I regard profit as what's left of the revenue after you pay the people who work on the project and any expenses, which is the way most corporations and accountants would view it. Th…

I am kind of amused to see someone here on HN, of all places, who allegedly runs a business use scare quotes around the word profit and make it sound like there's something ambiguous about it.

[deleted]

Re: Open Source does not win by being cheaper

#160

Post by hcks »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #99
reverius42 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you in the US? Do you report that revenue as personal income on your taxes? If yes, then I think it’s fair to call it profit (since you’re also presumably deducting expenses).

Yes, sole proprietor, all revenue reported as personal income ... hence I consider it income . It would be profit if I was organized as an LLC that agreed to pay me $X/year and took in $(X+Y) in revenue.

Like what’s your point really
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