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Founder here. Yes, that is an appropriate statement. We want to be a business on the likes of Mattermost, Kafka, ElasticSearch and so on. We are committed to bu

Founder here. Yes, that is an appropriate statement. We want to be a business on the likes of Mattermost, Kafka, ElasticSearch and so on. We are committed to building an open-source community. Honestly, we were not prepared for this post. We don't even have a license attorney. We just picked SSPL because that's what everyone seemed to suggest to prevent the likes of AWS cloning it. By no means we are an expert.

HillRat 7y ago
I think you’ve got a strong value proposition, especially in a GDPR/CCPA world. Have you figured out a channel and integration partner strategy yet? That’s probably the hill that you’re going to need to fight on.
- soumyadeb 7y ago
  No. I don't think we even understand the problem :) You mean, it would be hard to work with all the 200 or so 3rd party providers segment integrates with without having 1-1 relationships with them?
  - HillRat 7y ago
    That’s definitely one advantage they have in the market, but it’s also related to your sales strategy. You’re looking for companies that have both the need for large-scale streaming customer and analytics data routing and transformation, no existing investment in Segment, and the ability to manage the on-prem IT and development load. While you can probably go after smaller and more agile fish with, e.g., recipes for common needs, this reads a lot like big enterprise transformation sales and support, so you might want to look at connecting with established players who are already selling in those markets — consulting orgs, analytic tools vendors, or software companies selling things like API-first e-comm, where you’re upending legacy stacks.
    - soumyadeb 7y ago
      Hmm, honestly we don't have any connections into those. Would love to connect with you if you can help us. Interestingly, some of our initial pilots chose us not so much for privacy but for pricing. Segment's pricing doesn't work if you have a lot of free users (free games, online bloggers etc. There was a hackernews thread on this - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19220518 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19220518 We want to compete on the privacy angle but looks like the pricing might get us the initial downloads.
      - srameshc 7y ago
        Thanks for Rudder. Segment pricing was a deterrent for us because we have free tier. I searched a few days back but I am so glad I found something so awesome again on Hacker News :)
        soumyadeb 7y ago
        Thanks. Would love to help you out with your use case if you want. Please email me at soumyadeb@rudderlabs.com
  - tomnipotent 7y ago
    Solve it the same way Singer solved it for the opposite problem - provide a strong library/convention for how things are done, and trust the community to contribute while also providing integrations for the most used services. When I first found Singer, it had less than a dozen taps & targets. Now has multiple dozens. https://github.com/singer-io https://github.com/singer-io
techdragon 7y ago
Since you have chosen the SSPL in order to stop companies free riding off your work, you may want to also look at https://licensezero.com https://licensezero.com as another license option for this or other work you release. “Open source” software and “free” software as concepts have become entangled to an unhealthy level. Burnout and software project sustainability issues are important to be aware of and manage if we want to have successful long term open source projects that aren’t just sponsored by large companies like Microsoft, Google, Facebook and so on. So I’m glad you thought ahead and chose the SSPL, good luck and don’t let the haters get to you, at the end of the day it is “open source” and you’ll still be able to feed yourself!
- soumyadeb 7y ago
  Thanks for the reference and for your words of encouragement. Will check out licensezero and DM you if we have any questions.
  - techdragon 7y ago
    Sure! Email is in my profile, feel free to DM. :-)
    - soumyadeb 7y ago
      Thanks :)

HillRat 7y ago

I think you’ve got a strong value proposition, especially in a GDPR/CCPA world. Have you figured out a channel and integration partner strategy yet? That’s probably the hill that you’re going to need to fight on.

soumyadeb 7y ago
No. I don't think we even understand the problem :) You mean, it would be hard to work with all the 200 or so 3rd party providers segment integrates with without having 1-1 relationships with them?
- HillRat 7y ago
  That’s definitely one advantage they have in the market, but it’s also related to your sales strategy. You’re looking for companies that have both the need for large-scale streaming customer and analytics data routing and transformation, no existing investment in Segment, and the ability to manage the on-prem IT and development load. While you can probably go after smaller and more agile fish with, e.g., recipes for common needs, this reads a lot like big enterprise transformation sales and support, so you might want to look at connecting with established players who are already selling in those markets — consulting orgs, analytic tools vendors, or software companies selling things like API-first e-comm, where you’re upending legacy stacks.
  - soumyadeb 7y ago
    Hmm, honestly we don't have any connections into those. Would love to connect with you if you can help us. Interestingly, some of our initial pilots chose us not so much for privacy but for pricing. Segment's pricing doesn't work if you have a lot of free users (free games, online bloggers etc. There was a hackernews thread on this - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19220518 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19220518 We want to compete on the privacy angle but looks like the pricing might get us the initial downloads.
    - srameshc 7y ago
      Thanks for Rudder. Segment pricing was a deterrent for us because we have free tier. I searched a few days back but I am so glad I found something so awesome again on Hacker News :)
      - soumyadeb 7y ago
        Thanks. Would love to help you out with your use case if you want. Please email me at soumyadeb@rudderlabs.com
- tomnipotent 7y ago
  Solve it the same way Singer solved it for the opposite problem - provide a strong library/convention for how things are done, and trust the community to contribute while also providing integrations for the most used services. When I first found Singer, it had less than a dozen taps & targets. Now has multiple dozens. https://github.com/singer-io https://github.com/singer-io

techdragon 7y ago

Since you have chosen the SSPL in order to stop companies free riding off your work, you may want to also look at https://licensezero.com https://licensezero.com as another license option for this or other work you release. “Open source” software and “free” software as concepts have become entangled to an unhealthy level. Burnout and software project sustainability issues are important to be aware of and manage if we want to have successful long term open source projects that aren’t just sponsored by large companies like Microsoft, Google, Facebook and so on. So I’m glad you thought ahead and chose the SSPL, good luck and don’t let the haters get to you, at the end of the day it is “open source” and you’ll still be able to feed yourself!

soumyadeb 7y ago
Thanks for the reference and for your words of encouragement. Will check out licensezero and DM you if we have any questions.
- techdragon 7y ago
  Sure! Email is in my profile, feel free to DM. :-)
  - soumyadeb 7y ago
    Thanks :)