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does anyone have any insight what's with all these companies coming out of yc that are just open source implementations of currently successful projects? there'

does anyone have any insight what's with all these companies coming out of yc that are just open source implementations of currently successful projects? there's been at least 5 now is there some reasoning behind it or are we running out of ideas?

eterps 5y ago
Natural selection? Most devs try to avoid a lock-in situation. Having an open source option for the base functionality with additional paid features is something you can compete on.
abelanger 5y ago
> does anyone have any insight what's with all these companies coming out of yc that are just open source implementations of currently successful projects? there's been at least 5 now I can't speak for other companies, but we didn't look at Heroku and think to just create an open-source competitor. We thought of the idea after interacting with companies that migrated to Kubernetes that wanted their Heroku experience back, and later decided to be open-source. So I don't think our core value proposition stems from the open-source aspect, but it made sense for a lot of reasons -- unique to our product/team we felt that open-source was appropriate for a tool in the cloud-native ecosystem and since all three of us are developers, it was our natural inclination. On the technical side, being open source has come with a bunch of benefits thus far -- we get detailed bug reports since our users are developers, we get a channel where devs can keep tabs on our progress, it gives us a public log where we explain our decision-making in the specs for various features, and it forces us to be better technically. We had to create a development process rather than just push code (when we worked on projects in the past, we didn't follow best practices with regards to PRs, documenting issues, reviewing code and testing changes, because we were solely focused on immediate velocity, which we would have regretted if those projects ever got off the ground).
sungrokshim 5y ago
Building open source comes with a bunch of technical benefits like my co-founder mentions, and I don't think the recent trend is a result of YC startups "running out of ideas". It's somewhat like food companies going organic - at first organic food was a special thing, but organic food is becoming increasingly common because every company is doing it. (or maybe it's just at my grocery store :) ) We decided to go open source quite naturally for the benefits that Alexander mentions, but we are also aware of the business benefits that OSS brings. Open source/open core is increasingly becoming a standard in the devtool world and as the other comment points out, there is a certain degree of natural selection at play. To gain traction as a devtool company and drive bottoms-up growth, building in public helps tremendously these days, because developers almost don't want to use closed source products. Although the rise of "open core" and commercial open source projects does come with a bit of tension with open source purist ideology, I think this trend is something we should welcome as an industry. But this trend definitely isn't just a result of running out of ideas like Disney's endless real life remakes :)

eterps 5y ago

Natural selection? Most devs try to avoid a lock-in situation. Having an open source option for the base functionality with additional paid features is something you can compete on.

abelanger 5y ago

> does anyone have any insight what's with all these companies coming out of yc that are just open source implementations of currently successful projects? there's been at least 5 now I can't speak for other companies, but we didn't look at Heroku and think to just create an open-source competitor. We thought of the idea after interacting with companies that migrated to Kubernetes that wanted their Heroku experience back, and later decided to be open-source. So I don't think our core value proposition stems from the open-source aspect, but it made sense for a lot of reasons -- unique to our product/team we felt that open-source was appropriate for a tool in the cloud-native ecosystem and since all three of us are developers, it was our natural inclination. On the technical side, being open source has come with a bunch of benefits thus far -- we get detailed bug reports since our users are developers, we get a channel where devs can keep tabs on our progress, it gives us a public log where we explain our decision-making in the specs for various features, and it forces us to be better technically. We had to create a development process rather than just push code (when we worked on projects in the past, we didn't follow best practices with regards to PRs, documenting issues, reviewing code and testing changes, because we were solely focused on immediate velocity, which we would have regretted if those projects ever got off the ground).

sungrokshim 5y ago

Building open source comes with a bunch of technical benefits like my co-founder mentions, and I don't think the recent trend is a result of YC startups "running out of ideas". It's somewhat like food companies going organic - at first organic food was a special thing, but organic food is becoming increasingly common because every company is doing it. (or maybe it's just at my grocery store :) ) We decided to go open source quite naturally for the benefits that Alexander mentions, but we are also aware of the business benefits that OSS brings. Open source/open core is increasingly becoming a standard in the devtool world and as the other comment points out, there is a certain degree of natural selection at play. To gain traction as a devtool company and drive bottoms-up growth, building in public helps tremendously these days, because developers almost don't want to use closed source products. Although the rise of "open core" and commercial open source projects does come with a bit of tension with open source purist ideology, I think this trend is something we should welcome as an industry. But this trend definitely isn't just a result of running out of ideas like Disney's endless real life remakes :)