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Hey there, Thanks for the love! The OS version has not been shitcanned. We spoke about our plans on our podcast 10 days ago: https://fathom.transistor.fm/episo

Hey there, Thanks for the love! The OS version has not been shitcanned. We spoke about our plans on our podcast 10 days ago: https://fathom.transistor.fm/episodes/the-open-source-dilemma https://fathom.transistor.fm/episodes/the-open-source-dilemm... Running 2 software products & working a full time job is hard but we'll get some updates to the OS version. We're likely going to hire a contractor to help us!

dylz 7y ago
At this point it's completely diverged from the SaaS version, and is not similar in any way, correct? Are you porting the SaaS version? Would you be willing to do some kind of paid "license" to run the SaaS version locally?
- JackWritesCode 7y ago
  Great questions. 1) They are different codebases. OS was written in Go by the previous developer. I rewrote everything in Laravel 2) We don't think we'll be porting it to OS but there's no decision on this yet 3) That's a great idea regarding a license, because a lot of people want to self-host... We'll have a think because we've purposely tied our app to certain infastructure, so we'd need to put in significant work to make it transportable. I'm not saying never, I just don't know. We address some of the complications on the podcast. These are solid questions, thank you.
  - dylz 7y ago
    Do you think with the new Laravel stuff, 2) might be more feasible? I write a surprising amount of PHP for fun (not work/profit, so not really critical either) and IME Laravel has been incredibly easy to port out, with native config file support, CLI migrations, etc. I think 3) is interesting, because effectively a huge draw of your product is targeting privacy conscious people, and those are probably the least likely to want to trust a third party for it. I used https://haveamint.com/ https://haveamint.com/ for a while, but it's also been dead for quite a while. I haven't been able to get Piwik to handle my traffic volume. I don't make anything from my side projects, but I prefer self hosting to know exactly how much data is being collected and reduce it or modify the tracker script as needed, location-respect by hosting analytics data in the same datacentre as the site (so EU users aren't randomly getting analytics ticks sent to US or whatever, some people care, this is just easier for me), and it's really, really cheap to have bulk capacity for me compared to paying a SaaS per pageview - I have about 4 TB of RAM free right now on my (mostly k8s) clusters.
    - JackWritesCode 7y ago
      So it's not Laravel that's making it hard, it just means that we'd have to rethink how we've tied our product to the infastructure. It's definitely possible, and if we go down that route, the software in Laravel will make it a breeze to export. We spoke with a chap on twitter who made a great point that we'd likely see more contributions since it's in PHP / Laravel. Less people know Go, and one of the big reasons we didn't feel the obligation to OS the new version was because next to nobody contributed to the Lite version. And you're right. There are a segment of people who won't use analytics unless they're self-hosted. Totally understandable. We'll see what happens. It's not on the roadmap in the immediate future but we're not ruling it out.
      - tedivm 7y ago
        I'm that chap that spoke to them on twitter. I want to be very clear about what happened- one of the cofounders blocked me on twitter for asking these questions (even though I was polite about it), and then the other one reached out and we had a pretty decent call. Unfortunately that call made it very clear that they were not going to make the new version open source.
        JackWritesCode 7y ago
        Until I spoke to you, I thought you were a troll and so did Paul :P That call with you was very useful and gave us a lot to think about. We recorded a podcast about OS and I mentioned our call: https://fathom.transistor.fm/episodes/the-open-source-dilemma https://fathom.transistor.fm/episodes/the-open-source-dilemm...
- tedivm 7y ago
  I asked the same questions on Twitter. One of the cofounders had a meltdown over the questions, and the other founder actually hopped on a phone call with me to discuss their plans. As far as I can tell the open source version (which hasn't had any updates other than readme changes since earlier this year) is basically on life support. They have no plans to make the new hosted version open source, and only vague plans on hire a contractor in the future to keep the open source version alive. According to the cofounder I spoke with they went back and force about this half a dozen times, which is why their messaging has been so mixed- they had originally said in previous HN and twitter threads that they would open source the new version, but went back on that because they were worried it would take money from their hosted version.
  - JackWritesCode 7y ago
    Pretty much bang on. The only piece I'd point out is that Paul didn't have a meltdown, he thought you were a troll. We're looking to make the business sustainable so that we are in this for the long run. Without money, we couldn't spend the same amount of time on it that we are. And we were definitely bad on the messaging and are going to be more careful in the future as it does cause upset.
    - tedivm 7y ago
      I asked about the open source version, and then made a tweet about how you had changed your mind (which you've admitted to here, and on our phone call). Your cofounder showed up, accused me of lying, and then blocked me before I could respond with screenshots of your company previously committing to open sourcing the new version. If anyone was a troll in that situation it wasn't me ;-)
      - JackWritesCode 7y ago
        You're not a troll, we thought you were. We were very wrong. You were the complete opposite and wanted to help. Paul has publicly admitted that he was wrong on the podcast. It is funny in hindsight. He denied that we said we would OS it then I reminded him that he made the graphic announcing it! Big mistakes made on the messaging of this and lessons have been learned.

dylz 7y ago

At this point it's completely diverged from the SaaS version, and is not similar in any way, correct? Are you porting the SaaS version? Would you be willing to do some kind of paid "license" to run the SaaS version locally?

JackWritesCode 7y ago
Great questions. 1) They are different codebases. OS was written in Go by the previous developer. I rewrote everything in Laravel 2) We don't think we'll be porting it to OS but there's no decision on this yet 3) That's a great idea regarding a license, because a lot of people want to self-host... We'll have a think because we've purposely tied our app to certain infastructure, so we'd need to put in significant work to make it transportable. I'm not saying never, I just don't know. We address some of the complications on the podcast. These are solid questions, thank you.
- dylz 7y ago
  Do you think with the new Laravel stuff, 2) might be more feasible? I write a surprising amount of PHP for fun (not work/profit, so not really critical either) and IME Laravel has been incredibly easy to port out, with native config file support, CLI migrations, etc. I think 3) is interesting, because effectively a huge draw of your product is targeting privacy conscious people, and those are probably the least likely to want to trust a third party for it. I used https://haveamint.com/ https://haveamint.com/ for a while, but it's also been dead for quite a while. I haven't been able to get Piwik to handle my traffic volume. I don't make anything from my side projects, but I prefer self hosting to know exactly how much data is being collected and reduce it or modify the tracker script as needed, location-respect by hosting analytics data in the same datacentre as the site (so EU users aren't randomly getting analytics ticks sent to US or whatever, some people care, this is just easier for me), and it's really, really cheap to have bulk capacity for me compared to paying a SaaS per pageview - I have about 4 TB of RAM free right now on my (mostly k8s) clusters.
  - JackWritesCode 7y ago
    So it's not Laravel that's making it hard, it just means that we'd have to rethink how we've tied our product to the infastructure. It's definitely possible, and if we go down that route, the software in Laravel will make it a breeze to export. We spoke with a chap on twitter who made a great point that we'd likely see more contributions since it's in PHP / Laravel. Less people know Go, and one of the big reasons we didn't feel the obligation to OS the new version was because next to nobody contributed to the Lite version. And you're right. There are a segment of people who won't use analytics unless they're self-hosted. Totally understandable. We'll see what happens. It's not on the roadmap in the immediate future but we're not ruling it out.
    - tedivm 7y ago
      I'm that chap that spoke to them on twitter. I want to be very clear about what happened- one of the cofounders blocked me on twitter for asking these questions (even though I was polite about it), and then the other one reached out and we had a pretty decent call. Unfortunately that call made it very clear that they were not going to make the new version open source.
      - JackWritesCode 7y ago
        Until I spoke to you, I thought you were a troll and so did Paul :P That call with you was very useful and gave us a lot to think about. We recorded a podcast about OS and I mentioned our call: https://fathom.transistor.fm/episodes/the-open-source-dilemma https://fathom.transistor.fm/episodes/the-open-source-dilemm...
tedivm 7y ago
I asked the same questions on Twitter. One of the cofounders had a meltdown over the questions, and the other founder actually hopped on a phone call with me to discuss their plans. As far as I can tell the open source version (which hasn't had any updates other than readme changes since earlier this year) is basically on life support. They have no plans to make the new hosted version open source, and only vague plans on hire a contractor in the future to keep the open source version alive. According to the cofounder I spoke with they went back and force about this half a dozen times, which is why their messaging has been so mixed- they had originally said in previous HN and twitter threads that they would open source the new version, but went back on that because they were worried it would take money from their hosted version.
- JackWritesCode 7y ago
  Pretty much bang on. The only piece I'd point out is that Paul didn't have a meltdown, he thought you were a troll. We're looking to make the business sustainable so that we are in this for the long run. Without money, we couldn't spend the same amount of time on it that we are. And we were definitely bad on the messaging and are going to be more careful in the future as it does cause upset.
  - tedivm 7y ago
    I asked about the open source version, and then made a tweet about how you had changed your mind (which you've admitted to here, and on our phone call). Your cofounder showed up, accused me of lying, and then blocked me before I could respond with screenshots of your company previously committing to open sourcing the new version. If anyone was a troll in that situation it wasn't me ;-)
    - JackWritesCode 7y ago
      You're not a troll, we thought you were. We were very wrong. You were the complete opposite and wanted to help. Paul has publicly admitted that he was wrong on the podcast. It is funny in hindsight. He denied that we said we would OS it then I reminded him that he made the graphic announcing it! Big mistakes made on the messaging of this and lessons have been learned.