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No, because the user bases are completely different. If you're pulling down an open source database and setting it up there's a certain minimum technical skill

No, because the user bases are completely different. If you're pulling down an open source database and setting it up there's a certain minimum technical skill level that can be assumed. The same can't be said for a consumer video player.

jbk 9y ago
This ^^ Exactly right.
overcast 9y ago
I'm honestly not sure what that has anything to do with making millions of dollars, and forking VLC to the next iteration like how MySQL to MariaDB was played out. Where does the user base come into the discussion? You're on a forum, whose users primary motivation is starting companies. We're here to make money. If someone offers you tens of millions of dollars for a video player, you take it, and go enjoy life.
- fencepost 9y ago
  There are plenty of folks here for whom 'comfortable' money would be just fine when accompanied by 'make the world a better place, and avoid doing things that make it a worse place.'
  - overcast 9y ago
    You can do a lot more good in this world with tens of millions of dollars.
    - fencepost 9y ago
      You can also enable people to make the world a significantly crappier place for millions of people by accepting that money. If you're going to think of good or happiness as a transactional thing, you can "steal" some happiness from millions of people to increase your own (e.g. by getting tens of millions of dollars) but in doing so you've likely decreased to total happiness of the world. MAYBE you can make up the total amount of reduced happiness by spending that money to do good somewhere else, but you can never really know whether you've been successful and you can also never really know just how much you've worsened people's lives long-term. I find it unlikely that people interested in purchasing VLC so they could monetize it would stop at a level that users would consider acceptable. Selling out your users for money is almost always going to be a net loser in the currency of happiness in the world.
- kickling 9y ago
  Open source is not primarily for making money, no.

jbk 9y ago

This ^^ Exactly right.

overcast 9y ago

I'm honestly not sure what that has anything to do with making millions of dollars, and forking VLC to the next iteration like how MySQL to MariaDB was played out. Where does the user base come into the discussion? You're on a forum, whose users primary motivation is starting companies. We're here to make money. If someone offers you tens of millions of dollars for a video player, you take it, and go enjoy life.

fencepost 9y ago
There are plenty of folks here for whom 'comfortable' money would be just fine when accompanied by 'make the world a better place, and avoid doing things that make it a worse place.'
- overcast 9y ago
  You can do a lot more good in this world with tens of millions of dollars.
  - fencepost 9y ago
    You can also enable people to make the world a significantly crappier place for millions of people by accepting that money. If you're going to think of good or happiness as a transactional thing, you can "steal" some happiness from millions of people to increase your own (e.g. by getting tens of millions of dollars) but in doing so you've likely decreased to total happiness of the world. MAYBE you can make up the total amount of reduced happiness by spending that money to do good somewhere else, but you can never really know whether you've been successful and you can also never really know just how much you've worsened people's lives long-term. I find it unlikely that people interested in purchasing VLC so they could monetize it would stop at a level that users would consider acceptable. Selling out your users for money is almost always going to be a net loser in the currency of happiness in the world.
kickling 9y ago
Open source is not primarily for making money, no.