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Originating a widely-used open-source technology is a huge liability with virtually no financial benefit. It's a goal an engineer fetishizes and a product crea
by huebnerob 9y ago
Originating a widely-used open-source technology is a huge liability with virtually no financial benefit. It's a goal an engineer fetishizes and a product creator recoils at. I can't pay my rent with a pat-on-the-back buried in some acknowledgements screen, but hooray for my competitors being able to copy my product in a tenth of the time and effort.
Also, if everything were open-source, then nothing would get brownie points just for being open-source.
- vtange 9y agoBut if everything were open-source, anything new that's closed-source would get negative-brownie points cause it's not free. That's the thing about open-source though, it's a race to the bottom for market share. We saw it with React and Vue. I also get that open-source is a maintenance liability with issue and requests, but I also see plenty of open-source software that do well "provided as-is".
- SAI_Peregrinus 9y agoThat's where copyleft (GPL-style) is better than BSD-style. Competitors can copy your product, but you can copy back. You presumably have some first-mover advantage in an existing userbase, so you can improve your product and retain those users + gain more. If you went with a BSD license and the competitor stayed closed you'd be up the creek.
- criddell 9y agoThat's how it's supposed to work, but what are you going to do when a start up on the other side of the planet takes your GPL code to build something great but doesn't share their changes?