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I see these sorts of appeals a lot on HN but never really understood the point. Sure, software had a good run of small devs making big splashes, but it's pretty

I see these sorts of appeals a lot on HN but never really understood the point. Sure, software had a good run of small devs making big splashes, but it's pretty obvious to anyone watching that the garage days are over as far as big projects are concerned. The only real exception is the European software devs who, from a market perspective, exist mainly to sell the most promising projects to China or the US since they can deploy those projects in a way that drives growth. Why shame people for making smart moves?

skyfaller 7y ago
Is asking people to keep hope alive the same thing as shaming them for feeling hopeless? I hope my words don't come out that way, since it's certainly not what I intend. Also, one point I'm making here is that a small dev may not be able to make a world-dominating project by themselves, but it may serve as the foundation of something larger later. Is that really surprising or controversial? Perhaps a more important point I'd like to make is that neither Apple nor Google were quixotic enough to start a browser engine from scratch, for all of their expertise and cash. Without KHTML, we might still be suffering under IE or something even worse. It may take someone willing to tilt at windmills to dethrone Blink/Chrome, I don't think the suits will save us.
- emilsedgh 7y ago
  KHTML/Konqueror, Webkit, Safari and Chrome didn't really play an important role in IE6's destruction. It was Firefox. Firefox 1's slogan was literally "take back the web". It was only Firefox that took IE6 down. (I'm a KDE contributor and I may even have a couple of patches on Konqueror)
pas 7y ago
There are amazing almost turn-key FOSS solutions just an "npm install" away. (Plus 3D printing, plus dropshipping from Shenzhen, plus all the other stuff I'm not even aware of, but startups can and will use.) Sure, garage scale nowadays means just a few millions of USD angel/seed, compared to the 100K USD a decade (?) ago, but it doesn't mean that there are no niches waiting to be occupied, no new markets emerging ever in the future, etc.

skyfaller 7y ago

Is asking people to keep hope alive the same thing as shaming them for feeling hopeless? I hope my words don't come out that way, since it's certainly not what I intend. Also, one point I'm making here is that a small dev may not be able to make a world-dominating project by themselves, but it may serve as the foundation of something larger later. Is that really surprising or controversial? Perhaps a more important point I'd like to make is that neither Apple nor Google were quixotic enough to start a browser engine from scratch, for all of their expertise and cash. Without KHTML, we might still be suffering under IE or something even worse. It may take someone willing to tilt at windmills to dethrone Blink/Chrome, I don't think the suits will save us.

emilsedgh 7y ago
KHTML/Konqueror, Webkit, Safari and Chrome didn't really play an important role in IE6's destruction. It was Firefox. Firefox 1's slogan was literally "take back the web". It was only Firefox that took IE6 down. (I'm a KDE contributor and I may even have a couple of patches on Konqueror)

pas 7y ago

There are amazing almost turn-key FOSS solutions just an "npm install" away. (Plus 3D printing, plus dropshipping from Shenzhen, plus all the other stuff I'm not even aware of, but startups can and will use.) Sure, garage scale nowadays means just a few millions of USD angel/seed, compared to the 100K USD a decade (?) ago, but it doesn't mean that there are no niches waiting to be occupied, no new markets emerging ever in the future, etc.