5 ms·

This is just the usual "proprietary software is higher quality, we swear". Accurately voicing my thoughts on this would probably go against the HN guidelines,

This is just the usual "proprietary software is higher quality, we swear". Accurately voicing my thoughts on this would probably go against the HN guidelines, so I'll just let this sentence from the article speak for itself: >But our vision is a grand one—unify all of computation into a single coherent language, and for that, the FOSS development model is not well suited. Well, good luck with that.

candiddevmike 5y ago
I don't think they're wrong. Open source does not work with product management. There will always be friction with what is on the roadmap vs what the community wants to add. Additionally, if Wolfram wants to monetize it somehow, they have to own supporting it--including the contributions that they don't necessarily want. If they anger the community, then the community forks the project and Wolfram loses complete control or is in the same place they were before they open sourced it (but now their IP is gone). I don't see how they (Wolfram) benefit from FOSS at this point.
- mountainriver 5y ago
  Huh? Open source absolutely works with product management, their are tons of companies doing this today. OSS is a great way to market and up sell to SaaS
  - carry_bit 5y ago
    But then companies that make their money by upselling to SaaS really don't like it when Amazon comes along, takes the software, and undercuts them in the cloud. The company then scrambles to change their license to disallow that. Wolfram in that sense is just being honest about their motivations by having it be proprietary from the get-go.
    - mountainriver 5y ago
      There are ways of preventing that like what elastic did. If wolfram honestly wants to be the sole computation language no one is going to pay for that all the time
- sodality2 5y ago
  > There will always be friction with what is on the roadmap vs what the community wants to add. Open source does not necessitate listening to the community. Ever. Even if they were to release it under an OSS license, they could just turn off PRs. Or if it's "source available", same story.
  - candiddevmike 5y ago
    Then the community forks the OSS project and you lose control/struggle to maintain parity/mindshare. Gogs/Gitea, VIM/Neovim, Bitwarden/Vaultwarden... The ones that succeed keep the community happy and either focus on adding value on top (open core, don't give away the special sauce) or deliver half assed products (package up the community leftovers and hope support contracts/services fill in the gaps).
    - smoldesu 5y ago
      > Then the community forks the OSS project and you lose control/struggle to maintain parity/mindshare That shouldn't matter if you're making a superior product.
      - monsieurbanana 5y ago
        Well, yeah. So what's in it for them?
        smoldesu 5y ago
        Free QA/testing, a community of users who can submit patches, word-of-mouth marketing, a large install-base, opportunity to sell support to high-value clients.
        monsieurbanana 5y ago
        What's in it for them, if it turns out the community forks their project and do it better than them? I don't see it as a sound argument.
notsureaboutpg 5y ago
Well propietary software is usually higher quality. I'm a big open source proponent. I contribute to projects I use, either with patches, or donations, but I know I'm sacrificing quality for a guarantee and a peace of mind that comes with open source. It's kind of like how a friend of mine explained Halal Stock ETFs to me (they track stock indexes but remove companies with high debt loads or which sell haraam products like beer). He said, they will almost always underperform the regular stock market index. You aren't buying them to outperform those. You are buying them for a separate feature than product quality (religious compliance). That should be worth the drop in quality to you.

candiddevmike 5y ago

I don't think they're wrong. Open source does not work with product management. There will always be friction with what is on the roadmap vs what the community wants to add. Additionally, if Wolfram wants to monetize it somehow, they have to own supporting it--including the contributions that they don't necessarily want. If they anger the community, then the community forks the project and Wolfram loses complete control or is in the same place they were before they open sourced it (but now their IP is gone). I don't see how they (Wolfram) benefit from FOSS at this point.

mountainriver 5y ago
Huh? Open source absolutely works with product management, their are tons of companies doing this today. OSS is a great way to market and up sell to SaaS
- carry_bit 5y ago
  But then companies that make their money by upselling to SaaS really don't like it when Amazon comes along, takes the software, and undercuts them in the cloud. The company then scrambles to change their license to disallow that. Wolfram in that sense is just being honest about their motivations by having it be proprietary from the get-go.
  - mountainriver 5y ago
    There are ways of preventing that like what elastic did. If wolfram honestly wants to be the sole computation language no one is going to pay for that all the time
sodality2 5y ago
> There will always be friction with what is on the roadmap vs what the community wants to add. Open source does not necessitate listening to the community. Ever. Even if they were to release it under an OSS license, they could just turn off PRs. Or if it's "source available", same story.
- candiddevmike 5y ago
  Then the community forks the OSS project and you lose control/struggle to maintain parity/mindshare. Gogs/Gitea, VIM/Neovim, Bitwarden/Vaultwarden... The ones that succeed keep the community happy and either focus on adding value on top (open core, don't give away the special sauce) or deliver half assed products (package up the community leftovers and hope support contracts/services fill in the gaps).
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    > Then the community forks the OSS project and you lose control/struggle to maintain parity/mindshare That shouldn't matter if you're making a superior product.
    - monsieurbanana 5y ago
      Well, yeah. So what's in it for them?
      - smoldesu 5y ago
        Free QA/testing, a community of users who can submit patches, word-of-mouth marketing, a large install-base, opportunity to sell support to high-value clients.
        monsieurbanana 5y ago
        What's in it for them, if it turns out the community forks their project and do it better than them? I don't see it as a sound argument.

notsureaboutpg 5y ago

Well propietary software is usually higher quality. I'm a big open source proponent. I contribute to projects I use, either with patches, or donations, but I know I'm sacrificing quality for a guarantee and a peace of mind that comes with open source. It's kind of like how a friend of mine explained Halal Stock ETFs to me (they track stock indexes but remove companies with high debt loads or which sell haraam products like beer). He said, they will almost always underperform the regular stock market index. You aren't buying them to outperform those. You are buying them for a separate feature than product quality (religious compliance). That should be worth the drop in quality to you.