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> counterpoint: At the end of the day, I want people to use my stuff, but not grab and run with it, claiming ownership of it, depriving future users of the free

> counterpoint: At the end of the day, I want people to use my stuff, but not grab and run with it, claiming ownership of it, depriving future users of the freedoms in exchange for improvements. If your stuff is complex enough, then it should be easy to outcompete any improvements made by organizations. SQLite, for example, has multiple proprietary tests [1]. Corporations can try to improve on SQLite, but without these tests and the knowledge of Richard Hipp on their side, it will most likely fail. [1]: https://www.sqlite.org/testing.html https://www.sqlite.org/testing.html

Shish2k 4y ago
“SQLite is a successful open source project thanks to the fact that a significant chunk of development infrastructure isn’t open source” isn’t a great argument regarding the sustainability of open source… If Richard gets hit by a bus, and the community tries to keep the project alive according to free and open-source principles, then they’re going to face all the same barriers that a corporation would :/
- bayindirh 4y ago
  They are using this infrastructure as the moat. ReadTheDocs is also doing the same thing. Deploy if you dare: https://github.com/readthedocs/readthedocs.org https://github.com/readthedocs/readthedocs.org
- huijzer 4y ago
  > “SQLite is a successful open source project thanks to the fact that a significant chunk of development infrastructure isn’t open source” isn’t a great argument regarding the sustainability of open source… To maintain open source over a long period of time, some durable competitive advantage is probably required yes. With such a moat, competitors can be beaten. Luckily, being open source is also a small moat since it avoids vendor lock-in and some businesses need vendor lock-in to survive (I'm looking at your SAP). > If Richard gets hit by a bus, and the community tries to keep the project alive according to free and open-source principles, then they’re going to face all the same barriers that a corporation would :/ The project sits inside Richard's company and the company has some other engineers working there.

Shish2k 4y ago

“SQLite is a successful open source project thanks to the fact that a significant chunk of development infrastructure isn’t open source” isn’t a great argument regarding the sustainability of open source… If Richard gets hit by a bus, and the community tries to keep the project alive according to free and open-source principles, then they’re going to face all the same barriers that a corporation would :/

bayindirh 4y ago
They are using this infrastructure as the moat. ReadTheDocs is also doing the same thing. Deploy if you dare: https://github.com/readthedocs/readthedocs.org https://github.com/readthedocs/readthedocs.org
huijzer 4y ago
> “SQLite is a successful open source project thanks to the fact that a significant chunk of development infrastructure isn’t open source” isn’t a great argument regarding the sustainability of open source… To maintain open source over a long period of time, some durable competitive advantage is probably required yes. With such a moat, competitors can be beaten. Luckily, being open source is also a small moat since it avoids vendor lock-in and some businesses need vendor lock-in to survive (I'm looking at your SAP). > If Richard gets hit by a bus, and the community tries to keep the project alive according to free and open-source principles, then they’re going to face all the same barriers that a corporation would :/ The project sits inside Richard's company and the company has some other engineers working there.