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Show HN: Opensource.builders, open-source alternatives to commercial software

161 points by theturtletalks 7y ago

theturtletalks 7y ago
Source code: https://github.com/junaid33/opensource.builders https://github.com/junaid33/opensource.builders
cweagans 7y ago
FYI something is wrong with the text on this page. The name of each product shows up initially, and then fades out so that the page looks like this: https://monosnap.com/file/thwN7af0skMGrGn73arhYOF2GoDU1t https://monosnap.com/file/thwN7af0skMGrGn73arhYOF2GoDU1t
- mdszy 7y ago
  I get the same behavior. It appears that the text is becoming white, highlighting it makes it visible.
- theturtletalks 7y ago
  Thanks for pointing that out. Just pushed a fix.
pritambaral 7y ago
A few of these are, unfortunately, not Open Source, on account of being licensed under the SSPL or Commons Clause. In the latter's case, in particular, the very prescient complaint against the original "marketing" holds true: that people mistake it for Apache 2.
- soumyadeb 7y ago
  Founder of RudderStack (https://github.com/rudderlabs/rudder-server https://github.com/rudderlabs/rudder-server - open-source alternative to Segment) here. We are SSPL and this is the feedback we get all the time. I totally appreciate the sentiment around SSPL being not open-source but honestly, we don't know what is an alternative. We want to build an open-source product but also build a commercial entity around it – which means we want to stop the cloud providers from offering this as a service. We explored a couple of alternatives. AGPL does provide a similar level of protection against cloud providers – any app talking to RudderStack over an API to send events would be forced to open-source the app and hence it is almost not possible to build a SaaS service on top. But for this exact same reason, our users don’t like AGPL. AGPL is considered an absolute NO in lot of enterprises. To get around this, we have also thought of releasing our binary (and AMI images, docker images) under MIT license so that people can still run it but then but that was getting too complicated for a licensing model plus this doesn't stop AWS from offering it as a service. As you pointed out, Apache with Common Clause, CockroachDB license are all alternatives but none are true open-source. We are just hoping that one of the big OSS guys (with the budget to pay the attorneys) will figure this shit out once for all and we can just follow.
  - ocdtrekkie 7y ago
    The SSPL seems like the ideal solution, and very in the spirit of copyleft. I find it unfortunate that the OSI is treated as the only determiner of “what open source is” and that they have failed to accept SSPL.
    - soumyadeb 7y ago
      I agree but looking at the downvotes to my response, doesn't seem like the HN community agrees. SSPL may have drawbacks and there may be a better license than SSPL but someone needs to invest time and effort for that - hopefully the big OSS guys will take a lead.
    - cycloptic 7y ago
      Trying to pressure the OSI into accepting a license is not the way to go. There are valid reasons that they rejected it. This isn't exactly some cabal of lawyers trying to make you miserable, the SSPL was also independently banned by Debian and Fedora for not meeting their own guidelines on open source licenses. The review process for all of these organizations was lengthy and public and still available if you want to find it.
      - ocdtrekkie 7y ago
        I've read much of the review processes, and the OSI's position as I understand it, is pretty shameful. They seem happy to just decide they don't need to solve this problem. They seem perfectly happy to let open source businesses die while they hold a position solely beneficial to Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. I have no particular attachment to the SSPL or it's exact terms, but if the OSI was worthy of the high position they've been granted, they would actually gather up the lawyers behind SSPL, Commons Clause, BSL, etc. and hammer out a solution that was agreeable to all parties. Open source as a movement will live or die on whether or not either the OSI addresses this issue, or we unseat our caring for the OSI's position.
        cycloptic 7y ago
giancarlostoro 7y ago
It's still mildly disappointing that we only have one offering for "dropbox" and co and it's nowhere near where it could be after several years.
- jcelerier 7y ago
  ? seafile, syncthing, nextcloud, ...
  - giancarlostoro 7y ago
    > nextcloud The one I was thinking of, but the other two I've only maybe heard of one.
    - josteink 7y ago
      Nextcloud is pretty good these days. And I say that as someone who dismissed it as complete trash when it still was owncloud, a few years back. It’s really gotten noticeably better, and (for me at least) syncs much faster than Dropbox ever did. I’m populating new clients at 500mbps (which is my line cap). I really can’t complain.
      - prophesi 7y ago
        Yeah, I've been using Nextcloud for two years now. It overshadows Dropbox in terms of features and file-syncing.
app4soft 7y ago
As for me, representation of open-source alternatives on AlternativeTo wiki looks better.[0] [0] https://alternativeto.net/software/youtube/?license=opensource https://alternativeto.net/software/youtube/?license=opensour...
- theturtletalks 7y ago
  Yep been using alternativeto for a while and they are way ahead. I built this to highlight strictly open-source projects.
- gitgud 7y ago
  The key difference is that "AlternativeTo" has voting from users, whereas "Opensource.builders" has voting (stars) from developers... not sure which is better, probably a combination of both
- nitemice 7y ago
  The one issue I have with AlternativeTo is it sometimes conflates a website and an app. Your link, YouTube, is a good example. NewPipe is a great open-source alternative to the YouTube as an app (it's a YT client), while PeerTube is an alternative to YouTube as a website (it's a video-hosting platform). Yet they're listed together.
terpimost 7y ago
But open source could be commercial, right? So is it about free software?
- theturtletalks 7y ago
  Sure, some open-source can be commercial and run their own hosted versions like Gitlab and Sentry. They can be self-hosted by anyone on their own servers too.
- ensignavenger 7y ago
  Free software can still be commercial, I think the term they are looking for is "Proprietary" or "closed-source" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprietary_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprietary_software
butz 7y ago
How about using simple text for commercial software titles? That will make page searchable with Ctrl+F.
- theturtletalks 7y ago
  I'm working on adding search. Should be done soon.
ensignavenger 7y ago
I would add Zulip to the Slack alternatives, and Mattermost is AGPL, not MIT licensed. And as others have pointed out, there are several non-open source projects listed that shouldn't be. Edit: Also, Sentry is no longer Open Source and it is still listed as Apache licensed- https://blog.sentry.io/2019/11/06/relicensing-sentry https://blog.sentry.io/2019/11/06/relicensing-sentry FOr an open source alternative/fork, see GlitchTip (https://glitchtip.com/ https://glitchtip.com/)
mistrial9 7y ago
as an American struggling with some business attitudes here (versus EU mainly) .. I find a "rush to FOSS" to be troublesome.. There is an unfortunate overlap of "Free-as-in-Beer" and "Free-as-in-Freedom" which is not just disappearing! If you want to make enemies quickly, you can reinforce that notion that "software is free (beer)" towards Newspapers, freelance tech writers, independent medical professionals, clerks or any other of dozens of business types that are failing and going out of business in the Internet age. .. with nature abhorring a vacuum and all, what you get instead is lock-in monthly fee structures and massive feudal-style companies controlling those.. while the chances to earn a living independently get slimmer and slimmer.. at least here in the USA, it is very much happening.. Software freedom -- YES; absence of citizen commerce, NO
5- 7y ago
More specifically, GitHub-hosted open-source alternatives to commercial software.
Barrin92 7y ago
I'd find a place interesting that would list the opposite. Commercial or more obscure solutions that don't currently have any open source equivalent because when I'm looking for projects to learn a new language or I'm just bored that'd be a great starting place.
- TAForObvReasons 7y ago
  Those are almost assuredly awful projects when you are interested in learning a new language. Obscure software likely is laden with domain-specific knowledge that you don't have (otherwise you'd likely know about the commercial software). Known commercial applications with no open source equivalent are likely that way because it is difficult to build a replacement. When learning a new language, you're almost always better off picking a simple problem so you can focus on the ergonomics of the language. Trying to learn a problem domain and a programming language at the same time is really hard, and is a common reason why startups picking niche programming languages run into trouble
- theturtletalks 7y ago
  That’s what the requests page is for. You can add a request for an open-source alternative to commercial software that does not have it yet. https://opensource.builders/requests https://opensource.builders/requests
leggomylibro 7y ago
Nice UI - I noticed that there are a lot of web apps, but not as many 'offline' projects. D'you see this as a mostly web-based platform, or could you also see entries for programs like Photoshop and commercial IDEs? Either way, great job! And cool idea to use GitHub issues as a request form :)
- theturtletalks 7y ago
  I think offline apps is a great idea too! I’ll look into some alternatives and add those as well. I got the idea to use Github Issues from this repo: https://github.com/utterance/utterances https://github.com/utterance/utterances They use Github issues for comments so I thought I’d give it a shot as a request form.

Source code: https://github.com/junaid33/opensource.builders https://github.com/junaid33/opensource.builders

FYI something is wrong with the text on this page. The name of each product shows up initially, and then fades out so that the page looks like this: https://monosnap.com/file/thwN7af0skMGrGn73arhYOF2GoDU1t https://monosnap.com/file/thwN7af0skMGrGn73arhYOF2GoDU1t

mdszy 7y ago
I get the same behavior. It appears that the text is becoming white, highlighting it makes it visible.
theturtletalks 7y ago
Thanks for pointing that out. Just pushed a fix.

pritambaral 7y ago

A few of these are, unfortunately, not Open Source, on account of being licensed under the SSPL or Commons Clause. In the latter's case, in particular, the very prescient complaint against the original "marketing" holds true: that people mistake it for Apache 2.

soumyadeb 7y ago
Founder of RudderStack (https://github.com/rudderlabs/rudder-server https://github.com/rudderlabs/rudder-server - open-source alternative to Segment) here. We are SSPL and this is the feedback we get all the time. I totally appreciate the sentiment around SSPL being not open-source but honestly, we don't know what is an alternative. We want to build an open-source product but also build a commercial entity around it – which means we want to stop the cloud providers from offering this as a service. We explored a couple of alternatives. AGPL does provide a similar level of protection against cloud providers – any app talking to RudderStack over an API to send events would be forced to open-source the app and hence it is almost not possible to build a SaaS service on top. But for this exact same reason, our users don’t like AGPL. AGPL is considered an absolute NO in lot of enterprises. To get around this, we have also thought of releasing our binary (and AMI images, docker images) under MIT license so that people can still run it but then but that was getting too complicated for a licensing model plus this doesn't stop AWS from offering it as a service. As you pointed out, Apache with Common Clause, CockroachDB license are all alternatives but none are true open-source. We are just hoping that one of the big OSS guys (with the budget to pay the attorneys) will figure this shit out once for all and we can just follow.
- ocdtrekkie 7y ago
  The SSPL seems like the ideal solution, and very in the spirit of copyleft. I find it unfortunate that the OSI is treated as the only determiner of “what open source is” and that they have failed to accept SSPL.
  - soumyadeb 7y ago
    I agree but looking at the downvotes to my response, doesn't seem like the HN community agrees. SSPL may have drawbacks and there may be a better license than SSPL but someone needs to invest time and effort for that - hopefully the big OSS guys will take a lead.
  - cycloptic 7y ago
    Trying to pressure the OSI into accepting a license is not the way to go. There are valid reasons that they rejected it. This isn't exactly some cabal of lawyers trying to make you miserable, the SSPL was also independently banned by Debian and Fedora for not meeting their own guidelines on open source licenses. The review process for all of these organizations was lengthy and public and still available if you want to find it.
    - ocdtrekkie 7y ago
      I've read much of the review processes, and the OSI's position as I understand it, is pretty shameful. They seem happy to just decide they don't need to solve this problem. They seem perfectly happy to let open source businesses die while they hold a position solely beneficial to Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. I have no particular attachment to the SSPL or it's exact terms, but if the OSI was worthy of the high position they've been granted, they would actually gather up the lawyers behind SSPL, Commons Clause, BSL, etc. and hammer out a solution that was agreeable to all parties. Open source as a movement will live or die on whether or not either the OSI addresses this issue, or we unseat our caring for the OSI's position.
      - cycloptic 7y ago

giancarlostoro 7y ago

It's still mildly disappointing that we only have one offering for "dropbox" and co and it's nowhere near where it could be after several years.

jcelerier 7y ago
? seafile, syncthing, nextcloud, ...
- giancarlostoro 7y ago
  > nextcloud The one I was thinking of, but the other two I've only maybe heard of one.
  - josteink 7y ago
    Nextcloud is pretty good these days. And I say that as someone who dismissed it as complete trash when it still was owncloud, a few years back. It’s really gotten noticeably better, and (for me at least) syncs much faster than Dropbox ever did. I’m populating new clients at 500mbps (which is my line cap). I really can’t complain.
    - prophesi 7y ago
      Yeah, I've been using Nextcloud for two years now. It overshadows Dropbox in terms of features and file-syncing.

app4soft 7y ago

As for me, representation of open-source alternatives on AlternativeTo wiki looks better.[0] [0] https://alternativeto.net/software/youtube/?license=opensource https://alternativeto.net/software/youtube/?license=opensour...

theturtletalks 7y ago
Yep been using alternativeto for a while and they are way ahead. I built this to highlight strictly open-source projects.
gitgud 7y ago
The key difference is that "AlternativeTo" has voting from users, whereas "Opensource.builders" has voting (stars) from developers... not sure which is better, probably a combination of both
nitemice 7y ago
The one issue I have with AlternativeTo is it sometimes conflates a website and an app. Your link, YouTube, is a good example. NewPipe is a great open-source alternative to the YouTube as an app (it's a YT client), while PeerTube is an alternative to YouTube as a website (it's a video-hosting platform). Yet they're listed together.

terpimost 7y ago

But open source could be commercial, right? So is it about free software?

theturtletalks 7y ago
Sure, some open-source can be commercial and run their own hosted versions like Gitlab and Sentry. They can be self-hosted by anyone on their own servers too.
ensignavenger 7y ago
Free software can still be commercial, I think the term they are looking for is "Proprietary" or "closed-source" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprietary_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprietary_software

butz 7y ago

How about using simple text for commercial software titles? That will make page searchable with Ctrl+F.

theturtletalks 7y ago
I'm working on adding search. Should be done soon.

ensignavenger 7y ago

I would add Zulip to the Slack alternatives, and Mattermost is AGPL, not MIT licensed. And as others have pointed out, there are several non-open source projects listed that shouldn't be. Edit: Also, Sentry is no longer Open Source and it is still listed as Apache licensed- https://blog.sentry.io/2019/11/06/relicensing-sentry https://blog.sentry.io/2019/11/06/relicensing-sentry FOr an open source alternative/fork, see GlitchTip (https://glitchtip.com/ https://glitchtip.com/)

mistrial9 7y ago

as an American struggling with some business attitudes here (versus EU mainly) .. I find a "rush to FOSS" to be troublesome.. There is an unfortunate overlap of "Free-as-in-Beer" and "Free-as-in-Freedom" which is not just disappearing! If you want to make enemies quickly, you can reinforce that notion that "software is free (beer)" towards Newspapers, freelance tech writers, independent medical professionals, clerks or any other of dozens of business types that are failing and going out of business in the Internet age. .. with nature abhorring a vacuum and all, what you get instead is lock-in monthly fee structures and massive feudal-style companies controlling those.. while the chances to earn a living independently get slimmer and slimmer.. at least here in the USA, it is very much happening.. Software freedom -- YES; absence of citizen commerce, NO

5- 7y ago

More specifically, GitHub-hosted open-source alternatives to commercial software.

Barrin92 7y ago

I'd find a place interesting that would list the opposite. Commercial or more obscure solutions that don't currently have any open source equivalent because when I'm looking for projects to learn a new language or I'm just bored that'd be a great starting place.

TAForObvReasons 7y ago
Those are almost assuredly awful projects when you are interested in learning a new language. Obscure software likely is laden with domain-specific knowledge that you don't have (otherwise you'd likely know about the commercial software). Known commercial applications with no open source equivalent are likely that way because it is difficult to build a replacement. When learning a new language, you're almost always better off picking a simple problem so you can focus on the ergonomics of the language. Trying to learn a problem domain and a programming language at the same time is really hard, and is a common reason why startups picking niche programming languages run into trouble
theturtletalks 7y ago
That’s what the requests page is for. You can add a request for an open-source alternative to commercial software that does not have it yet. https://opensource.builders/requests https://opensource.builders/requests

leggomylibro 7y ago

Nice UI - I noticed that there are a lot of web apps, but not as many 'offline' projects. D'you see this as a mostly web-based platform, or could you also see entries for programs like Photoshop and commercial IDEs? Either way, great job! And cool idea to use GitHub issues as a request form :)

theturtletalks 7y ago
I think offline apps is a great idea too! I’ll look into some alternatives and add those as well. I got the idea to use Github Issues from this repo: https://github.com/utterance/utterances https://github.com/utterance/utterances They use Github issues for comments so I thought I’d give it a shot as a request form.