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Bad headline. Article is about identifying open source infrastructure tools as an overlooked category for venture capital funding.
by dzdt 11y ago
Bad headline. Article is about identifying open source infrastructure tools as an overlooked category for venture capital funding.
- Anchor 11y agoMaybe if VCs do not see a way to make a decent return on their investments on common infrastructure (as seems to be the case also with physical infrastructure), we should consider funding that work through taxes. The article refers to Mark Suster's comment that "[OSS projects] directly caused tech’s rapid rise". This work benefits many, and we rely on it to exist - and function (Heartbleed), so there are similarities to physical infrastructure. How about a new civil servant job: OSS maintainer.
- cpr 11y agoSure, let the efficiency experts at the government find and supply the workers. ;-)
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- forgottenpass 11y agoWhy should my taxes subsidize the open source toolkits of closed source projects? Unless you're talking about taxing only software startups, I don't want them getting a handout.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- aidenn0 11y agoYour taxes subsidize the highways used by commercial shipping companies too.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago> How about a new civil servant job: OSS maintainer. https://18f.gsa.gov/ https://18f.gsa.gov/ EDIT: > We are transforming government from the inside out, creating cultural change by working with teams inside agencies who want to create great services for the public.
- scrollaway 11y agoHow wonderful is that site... https://18f.gsa.gov/2016/01/12/hacking-inclusion-by-customizing-a-slack-bot/ https://18f.gsa.gov/2016/01/12/hacking-inclusion-by-customiz... I can't tell what's more wrong here. The passive-aggressiveness of writing a bot to correct people, or the fact it's going on on a .gov. (And before you scream at me for being a heartless sexist bastard or some such, this would be just as messed up if it were a bot that corrects your->you're. Passive aggressiveness certainly does not improve workplace health.)
- toomuchtodo 11y ago18F is doing phenomenal work fixing government. I'll let the excessive PC-ness slide. It's a bot. Ignore it.
- scrollaway 11y agoFor the record, I don't know who they are - I've seen them linked once before but I have no ties nor love for San Francisco and their work is very localized. So I don't particularly doubt their work but I literally just picked the top post on their front page. If they are doing phenomenal work, I'm not impressed :) And seeing as my previous post is predictably getting instant downvoted, I should also state that I really don't care about PCness one way or another. What I do see is that "fixing government" apparently includes policing how people talk to each other in an extremely passive-aggressive way that would not be tolerated in any community I moderate or, really, have ever been a part of. All that in the name of improving workplace communications, which this simply does not achieve.
- 11y ago
- anotheryou 11y agothanks, came to the comments just to see if it was about internet culture of some sort or not.
- fweespeech 11y agoYeah. It also, frankly, isn't really a blindspot so much as a known problem by devs that contribute/heavily use OS. We just don't make the financial decisions.
- sarciszewski 11y agoThank you for that spectacular TL;DR. No rational investor wants to invest in something that will absolutely not give them a return. Most open source infrastructure tools lack a business model to capture revenue from its users. So one of several things will have to happen in order for open source infrastructure to get funded: - Investors will part ways with their money, full knowing that they will not see a return. (Unlikely to happen.) - Investors will strong-arm infrastructure projects into restructuring into a for-profit model. (Unlikely to succeed.) - People other than investors will have to step up. (Plausible.) "People" here can refer to independently wealthy individuals, successful companies, the government, or a flash mob of donators (crowd-funding). (Note: Return means capital return, not "social good" return.) For the record, I contribute a little here and there to open source projects (usually in the form of vulnerability reporting) and started several FLOSS of my own (including several cryptography projects for PHP developers to use in their projects). To date, I've made $0 from any of it, and I don't see that changing in the near future for me.
- adekok 11y ago> Most open source infrastructure tools lack a business model to capture revenue from its users. Like youtube videographers? Who start off doing it for fun, and then later monetize it? That evidence shows you're wrong.
- sarciszewski 11y agoHow do you monetize, say, OpenSSL?
- wmf 11y agoWasn't the purported reason why OpenSSL rotted that the developers were fully booked doing paid consulting and had no time to spend on maintenance? http://openssl.com/what.html http://openssl.com/what.html
- sarciszewski 11y ago
- dang 11y agoOk, let's use yours instead. Thanks! If someone suggests a better (more accurate and neutral) title, we can change it again.
- sarciszewski 11y agoI like this one. Thanks again 'dang :)
- nayafia 11y agohi there! I wrote this article. Glad to see it on HN. I didn't see the original headline, but wanted to point out that the current headline is IMO inaccurate. OSS infrastructure isn't an overlooked category for VC funding; it's just not venture backable. My suggestion was not that VC should fix the problem, but that we in tech should recognize the issue and find another way of supporting it.