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Many products would have been better off by declaring them as feature complete and only continuing fixing bugs. Unfortunately, this happens rarely due to misali

by zerr 5y ago

Many products would have been better off by declaring them as feature complete and only continuing fixing bugs. Unfortunately, this happens rarely due to misalignment with employment incentives I believe.

DesiLurker 5y ago
This is the reason I believe there should be a framework/mechanism for dying companies to open source their works. this way they can continue to live on forever or at least have a way to influence something better.
- lukifer 5y ago
  "Exit to Community": https://www.colorado.edu/lab/medlab/exit-to-community https://www.colorado.edu/lab/medlab/exit-to-community
  - DesiLurker 5y ago
    I did not know about that but thanks for sharing. this is what I am talking about though I believe it will have more teeth if VC firms have some sort of an alliance that adopts this model. in-fact if they do that they can dictate the terms of s/w release in more palatable licenses than say GPLv3. overall I feel a lot more work is needed in establishing some sort of commons framework.
    - lukifer 5y ago
      > establishing some sort of commons framework I very much agree, and there are some compelling projects happening in that space as well: - https://commonsstack.org/ https://commonsstack.org/ - https://commonsengine.org/ https://commonsengine.org/ Getting VC firms on-board is a tough sell, though. Their model intrinsically involves getting a greater return than the up-front investment, usually through centralization, quasi-monopoly, and rent-seeking. The low hit-rate of breakthrough successes makes the perverse incentive all the stronger: VCs need unicorn cash-cows, to offset and subsidize the failures. At best, exit-to-community would be a mechanism to cut losses on investments with a small-but-loyal userbase, but without enough revenue to be truly profitable from the VC's perspective.
- thfuran 5y ago
  That doesn't really do anything to address the incentives.
  - DesiLurker 5y ago
    No it doesn't but I am assuming current financial incentives of 90% of failed startups are already fine tuned enough. eventually one of those startups would get it right but what this gets us as a whole is to not reinvent the wheel (or at least take the good parts of the wheel) move to the next stage by building on top of existing infra. Big VCs or accelerators like YC should be creating 'commons' to house freely available works of failed startups to be used by next venture. the big idea is that after a few such iterations startups will focus on solving the core fundamental issues of the target market rather than build out a bunch of infra. IMO this would reduce capital cost for newer startups in the same field, that should impact the incentives but its subtle. also, who know if all the work is out in open maybe some new startup would get an idea to put things together in a entirely new way. just imagine if BeOS we opensourced when it went under instead of letting it rot in some server.

by zerr 5y ago

DesiLurker 5y ago

This is the reason I believe there should be a framework/mechanism for dying companies to open source their works. this way they can continue to live on forever or at least have a way to influence something better.

lukifer 5y ago
"Exit to Community": https://www.colorado.edu/lab/medlab/exit-to-community https://www.colorado.edu/lab/medlab/exit-to-community
- DesiLurker 5y ago
  I did not know about that but thanks for sharing. this is what I am talking about though I believe it will have more teeth if VC firms have some sort of an alliance that adopts this model. in-fact if they do that they can dictate the terms of s/w release in more palatable licenses than say GPLv3. overall I feel a lot more work is needed in establishing some sort of commons framework.
  - lukifer 5y ago
    > establishing some sort of commons framework I very much agree, and there are some compelling projects happening in that space as well: - https://commonsstack.org/ https://commonsstack.org/ - https://commonsengine.org/ https://commonsengine.org/ Getting VC firms on-board is a tough sell, though. Their model intrinsically involves getting a greater return than the up-front investment, usually through centralization, quasi-monopoly, and rent-seeking. The low hit-rate of breakthrough successes makes the perverse incentive all the stronger: VCs need unicorn cash-cows, to offset and subsidize the failures. At best, exit-to-community would be a mechanism to cut losses on investments with a small-but-loyal userbase, but without enough revenue to be truly profitable from the VC's perspective.
thfuran 5y ago
That doesn't really do anything to address the incentives.
- DesiLurker 5y ago
  No it doesn't but I am assuming current financial incentives of 90% of failed startups are already fine tuned enough. eventually one of those startups would get it right but what this gets us as a whole is to not reinvent the wheel (or at least take the good parts of the wheel) move to the next stage by building on top of existing infra. Big VCs or accelerators like YC should be creating 'commons' to house freely available works of failed startups to be used by next venture. the big idea is that after a few such iterations startups will focus on solving the core fundamental issues of the target market rather than build out a bunch of infra. IMO this would reduce capital cost for newer startups in the same field, that should impact the incentives but its subtle. also, who know if all the work is out in open maybe some new startup would get an idea to put things together in a entirely new way. just imagine if BeOS we opensourced when it went under instead of letting it rot in some server.