4 ms·

My point was that the term "vendor lock-in" is loaded. Your point is valid simultaneously. Expanding on my point, I do think it's possible that AWS can provide

by kodah 6y ago

My point was that the term "vendor lock-in" is loaded. Your point is valid simultaneously. Expanding on my point, I do think it's possible that AWS can provide services that continue to make software easy to run (like fully managed services). The way I see this is if AWS becomes the primary contributor and the dominant service provider, then the same situation you described happens in reverse. I think the solution here is probably about connecting the success of managed open source based services on AWS to keeping the companies that power them funded. If you balance contributions and money, it keeps the ecosystem in a better state.

jrochkind1 6y ago
I see what you mean, and this perhaps is related to the OP's suggestion that ideally you have a "open source-licensed projects with a non-profit home, neutral trademark ownership, and multiple significant contributors" -- multiple significant contributors. But here's the thing. Open source means that even the single contributing entity can not take away your ability to use already-reased code, or anyone's ability to fork it and keep working on it without the permission of the original author. Open source is designed this way exactly to avoid vendor lock-in -- you can always, in the "worst" case, fork the code without the participation of the original authors at all. This won't necessarily be easy, cheap or even feasible; sure. Open source does not automatically solve all your problems or guarantee that you'll be able to get the software you want for free forever. It just takes out of the question needing to get permission to do what you want or need to do from the authors or a single owning vendor. This is what many mean by avoiding vendor lock-in. In some cases open source may not be sustainable. In some cases as a consumer it may make sense to choose a non-open-source product; in many cases as a producer trying to make money producing open source may not make a business model. But if you want to limit people's ability to use whatever hosted service providers they want, including after a fork, including even if your business goes out of existence, that's not open source.

by kodah 6y ago

jrochkind1 6y ago

I see what you mean, and this perhaps is related to the OP's suggestion that ideally you have a "open source-licensed projects with a non-profit home, neutral trademark ownership, and multiple significant contributors" -- multiple significant contributors. But here's the thing. Open source means that even the single contributing entity can not take away your ability to use already-reased code, or anyone's ability to fork it and keep working on it without the permission of the original author. Open source is designed this way exactly to avoid vendor lock-in -- you can always, in the "worst" case, fork the code without the participation of the original authors at all. This won't necessarily be easy, cheap or even feasible; sure. Open source does not automatically solve all your problems or guarantee that you'll be able to get the software you want for free forever. It just takes out of the question needing to get permission to do what you want or need to do from the authors or a single owning vendor. This is what many mean by avoiding vendor lock-in. In some cases open source may not be sustainable. In some cases as a consumer it may make sense to choose a non-open-source product; in many cases as a producer trying to make money producing open source may not make a business model. But if you want to limit people's ability to use whatever hosted service providers they want, including after a fork, including even if your business goes out of existence, that's not open source.