4 ms·

Developers expect to get free tools.

brigandish 5y ago
Partly because devs tend to labour under the misapprehension that: a) pretty much any closed source project or online service can be done just as well by gluing together parts of open source projects… Which may be true in some cases, but the real misapprehension is the final part: b) …and it won't be difficult to do. The classic is the HN comment about Dropbox, but I see at least one comment a week saying something similar. No doubt there are many more.
- motles 5y ago
  Can you clarify? Like are people saying that Dropbox is easy to replace with OSS? Like ALL it’s functionality?
  - brigandish 5y ago
    This is the (in)famous comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 though, as I wrote, I don't think it's particularly special, it's just the one that gained notoriety. I actually responded to one just this week, they're rife. The optimism bias is a problem even for programmers.
  - tpetry 5y ago
    It‘s a reference to this historic comment when dropbox was first shown on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
- sangnoir 5y ago
  It's not a misapprehension: selling tools to tool-makers requires that you walk a very fine line. A lot of closed-source tools have pissed off developers enough to be replaced by usually-superior open-source versions, e.g. Git replacing BitKeeper because kernel developers were not happy with BK. Outside of very specialized tools, open source tools tend to attract more contributors and quickly overtake incumbents (see compilers). JetBrains is one of the few companies that bucks the trend, and one I gladly give money to regardless of my increasing VSCode usage. Had Dropbox been marketed at developers only, it would have been a spectacular failure in a world where inotify, rsync, cron and scp already existed.
  - pxc 5y ago
    > JetBrains is one of the few companies that bucks the trend, and one I gladly give money to regardless of my increasing VSCode usage. Large parts of IntelliJ are open-source as well, and sometimes they do get used in other open-source editors. Afaict they're pretty good citizens in terms of F/OSS.
motles 5y ago
Is this true? I know developers that pay for IDEs, managed git, jira, and CI/CD services. Developers that use Postgres might pay for postico etc.
- vbezhenar 5y ago
  Popular tools are free. There are few exceptions, most notable one is Intellij Idea, but even Idea seems to be eclipsed by VScode lately. I struggle to remember a single paid Java library I've used in the last 10 years. Everything is free. There was commercial ecosystem around Delphi. Paid IDE, paid components. There's paid Lisp IDEs. But it's definitely not mainstream today.
  - my123 5y ago
    IDEA has an open source edition. (and of course, don’t forget about Visual Studio)
bayindirh 5y ago
I for one don't expect to get free tools, but expact that licensing of something (cough elastic, docker cough) doesn't change overnight in a very hostile manner so I feel ripped off. I for one mostly use GPL or similarly licensed tools for my development workflow to be able to make sure my building infrastructure doesn't rot, and can be completely replicated by someone when I open the code (with a xGPL license, no less). OTOH, I pay for some good developer tools, since they make my life easier. However, they're not irreplaceable and they're definitely not "code pipeline infrastructure" tools.
pjmlp 5y ago
As a developer I pay for tools the same way I expect to be paid for my own work. The tools aren't created in vacuum and the creators also have bills to pay, just like I do as well.

Partly because devs tend to labour under the misapprehension that: a) pretty much any closed source project or online service can be done just as well by gluing together parts of open source projects… Which may be true in some cases, but the real misapprehension is the final part: b) …and it won't be difficult to do. The classic is the HN comment about Dropbox, but I see at least one comment a week saying something similar. No doubt there are many more.

motles 5y ago
Can you clarify? Like are people saying that Dropbox is easy to replace with OSS? Like ALL it’s functionality?
- brigandish 5y ago
  This is the (in)famous comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 though, as I wrote, I don't think it's particularly special, it's just the one that gained notoriety. I actually responded to one just this week, they're rife. The optimism bias is a problem even for programmers.
- tpetry 5y ago
  It‘s a reference to this historic comment when dropbox was first shown on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
sangnoir 5y ago
It's not a misapprehension: selling tools to tool-makers requires that you walk a very fine line. A lot of closed-source tools have pissed off developers enough to be replaced by usually-superior open-source versions, e.g. Git replacing BitKeeper because kernel developers were not happy with BK. Outside of very specialized tools, open source tools tend to attract more contributors and quickly overtake incumbents (see compilers). JetBrains is one of the few companies that bucks the trend, and one I gladly give money to regardless of my increasing VSCode usage. Had Dropbox been marketed at developers only, it would have been a spectacular failure in a world where inotify, rsync, cron and scp already existed.
- pxc 5y ago
  > JetBrains is one of the few companies that bucks the trend, and one I gladly give money to regardless of my increasing VSCode usage. Large parts of IntelliJ are open-source as well, and sometimes they do get used in other open-source editors. Afaict they're pretty good citizens in terms of F/OSS.

motles 5y ago

Is this true? I know developers that pay for IDEs, managed git, jira, and CI/CD services. Developers that use Postgres might pay for postico etc.

vbezhenar 5y ago
Popular tools are free. There are few exceptions, most notable one is Intellij Idea, but even Idea seems to be eclipsed by VScode lately. I struggle to remember a single paid Java library I've used in the last 10 years. Everything is free. There was commercial ecosystem around Delphi. Paid IDE, paid components. There's paid Lisp IDEs. But it's definitely not mainstream today.
- my123 5y ago
  IDEA has an open source edition. (and of course, don’t forget about Visual Studio)

bayindirh 5y ago

I for one don't expect to get free tools, but expact that licensing of something (cough elastic, docker cough) doesn't change overnight in a very hostile manner so I feel ripped off. I for one mostly use GPL or similarly licensed tools for my development workflow to be able to make sure my building infrastructure doesn't rot, and can be completely replicated by someone when I open the code (with a xGPL license, no less). OTOH, I pay for some good developer tools, since they make my life easier. However, they're not irreplaceable and they're definitely not "code pipeline infrastructure" tools.

pjmlp 5y ago

As a developer I pay for tools the same way I expect to be paid for my own work. The tools aren't created in vacuum and the creators also have bills to pay, just like I do as well.