4 ms·

There's an "open core" VC fund I've seen blog posts from on here, I'd be interested to hear their take. I agree that open source is in trouble as it's basically

There's an "open core" VC fund I've seen blog posts from on here, I'd be interested to hear their take. I agree that open source is in trouble as it's basically shifted to branding, as a way, like the author says to extract maximal value from the "community" while giving nothing back. It's like moving into one of the sub-optimal prisoners dilemma quadrants where somebody rats. That said, I don't agree with the dig at LLMs, it seems tacked on and more just an ideological complain, which is odd in the context of open source.

chriskrycho 3y ago
I largely do agree with it, but agree that it's somewhat secondary to the specifics of the pice. In context of reading his stuff more generally, it makes sense: he's been writing extensively on that subject (including a self-published book on the subject) for many months, so if you are a regular reader, it fits. The challenge of writing for your existing audience vs. the inherent context collapse of an individual post online!
yesimahuman 3y ago
In many cases these open core companies are not “giving nothing back”, but are funding engineer salaries on the order of millions of dollars per year to invest in the OSS project that they use as customer acquisition for a commercial cloud and enterprise offering on top. Companies like Vercel and Ionic both employ this model. I think people often forget how much these companies invest and “give back” to the community in terms of raw dollar investment
- canucyc 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - spankalee 3y ago
    The fact is that I can go use, fork, derive from and contribute to Stencil or Capacitor - with are very valuable projects, and cost millions to develop - without paying Ionic a cent. How is that bullshit?
    - lockhouse 3y ago
      They’re a Troll, please don’t feed them. Just look at their other comments if you don’t believe me.
    - canucyc 3y ago
      [flagged]
  - mistrial9 3y ago
    [flagged]
User23 3y ago
As usual when it comes to computing freedom, RMS was right[1]. "Open Source" was conceived as a way to market to corporate executives. It's unsurprising then that corporate executives took it for exactly what they were sold it as, a way to get developers' work without paying for it. [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....
- canucyc 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - canucyc 3y ago
    [flagged]
- spankalee 3y ago
  I personally get paid to work on open source, which is the opposite of what you're claiming here.
- pessimizer 3y ago
  Rather, it's unsurprising that corporate executives took Open Source for exactly what it was designed as. It's left the anti-copyleft guys babbling about plunder and The Spirit of Open Source™. I'm honestly shocked that I don't hear them calling companies that get rich off OSS "settler colonialists."
dspillett 3y ago
> That said, I don't agree with the dig at LLMs, ... [it] is odd in the context of open source. I don't see it that way, if talking about the stricter end of OSS licensing. There is an argument for training a model with AGPL code meaning that the resulting model should be released in full to its users as a derivative work, for instance. Being an ideological complaint doesn't make it an invalid one, even if you consider that ideology to be rather dogmatic.
sytse 3y ago
I assume you mean my VC fund, Open Core Ventures https://opencoreventures.com/ https://opencoreventures.com/ that starts new companies around existing open source projects. We believe that open core companies need to give back and the open source code base should be better off because the open core company exists. Features that appeal most to individual contributors should be open source https://opencoreventures.com/blog/2023-01-open-core-standard-pricing-model/ https://opencoreventures.com/blog/2023-01-open-core-standard... The article mentions the recent move of RedHat to no longer share their source code. I think RedHat is a special case because they didn't have any proprietary code https://opencoreventures.com/blog/2023-04-red-hat-model-only-worked-red-hat/ https://opencoreventures.com/blog/2023-04-red-hat-model-only... Open core can be done right and wrong (not giving back, etc.), for some more thoughts on how to do it right please see https://opencoreventures.com/blog/2023-07-open-core-is-misunderstood-business-model/ https://opencoreventures.com/blog/2023-07-open-core-is-misun... We're figuring all of this our as we do it, suggestions are welcome.
- version_five 3y ago
  Thanks for replying. I hope you and others can find a way to make open source more sustainable without compromising the projects. Like I alluded to with my prisoners dilemma comment above, I think there is an optimum for everyone where companies try and make the open source project itself as valuable as possible instead of extracting value from it, and I'm happy hear about businesses that are legitimately trying to get us there.
  - sytse 3y ago
    Thanks for your response, I appreciate it. One thing that is a big risk to the optimum is open core companies relicensing the open source code after the project becomes popular, to prevent this some of our companies are set up as public benefit companies https://opencoreventures.com/blog/2022-11-introducing-authentik-security/ https://opencoreventures.com/blog/2022-11-introducing-authen...
    - dtaht 3y ago

chriskrycho 3y ago

I largely do agree with it, but agree that it's somewhat secondary to the specifics of the pice. In context of reading his stuff more generally, it makes sense: he's been writing extensively on that subject (including a self-published book on the subject) for many months, so if you are a regular reader, it fits. The challenge of writing for your existing audience vs. the inherent context collapse of an individual post online!

yesimahuman 3y ago

In many cases these open core companies are not “giving nothing back”, but are funding engineer salaries on the order of millions of dollars per year to invest in the OSS project that they use as customer acquisition for a commercial cloud and enterprise offering on top. Companies like Vercel and Ionic both employ this model. I think people often forget how much these companies invest and “give back” to the community in terms of raw dollar investment

canucyc 3y ago
[flagged]
- spankalee 3y ago
  The fact is that I can go use, fork, derive from and contribute to Stencil or Capacitor - with are very valuable projects, and cost millions to develop - without paying Ionic a cent. How is that bullshit?
  - lockhouse 3y ago
    They’re a Troll, please don’t feed them. Just look at their other comments if you don’t believe me.
  - canucyc 3y ago
    [flagged]
- mistrial9 3y ago
  [flagged]

User23 3y ago

As usual when it comes to computing freedom, RMS was right[1]. "Open Source" was conceived as a way to market to corporate executives. It's unsurprising then that corporate executives took it for exactly what they were sold it as, a way to get developers' work without paying for it. [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....

canucyc 3y ago
[flagged]
- canucyc 3y ago
  [flagged]
spankalee 3y ago
I personally get paid to work on open source, which is the opposite of what you're claiming here.
pessimizer 3y ago
Rather, it's unsurprising that corporate executives took Open Source for exactly what it was designed as. It's left the anti-copyleft guys babbling about plunder and The Spirit of Open Source™. I'm honestly shocked that I don't hear them calling companies that get rich off OSS "settler colonialists."

dspillett 3y ago

> That said, I don't agree with the dig at LLMs, ... [it] is odd in the context of open source. I don't see it that way, if talking about the stricter end of OSS licensing. There is an argument for training a model with AGPL code meaning that the resulting model should be released in full to its users as a derivative work, for instance. Being an ideological complaint doesn't make it an invalid one, even if you consider that ideology to be rather dogmatic.

sytse 3y ago

I assume you mean my VC fund, Open Core Ventures https://opencoreventures.com/ https://opencoreventures.com/ that starts new companies around existing open source projects. We believe that open core companies need to give back and the open source code base should be better off because the open core company exists. Features that appeal most to individual contributors should be open source https://opencoreventures.com/blog/2023-01-open-core-standard-pricing-model/ https://opencoreventures.com/blog/2023-01-open-core-standard... The article mentions the recent move of RedHat to no longer share their source code. I think RedHat is a special case because they didn't have any proprietary code https://opencoreventures.com/blog/2023-04-red-hat-model-only-worked-red-hat/ https://opencoreventures.com/blog/2023-04-red-hat-model-only... Open core can be done right and wrong (not giving back, etc.), for some more thoughts on how to do it right please see https://opencoreventures.com/blog/2023-07-open-core-is-misunderstood-business-model/ https://opencoreventures.com/blog/2023-07-open-core-is-misun... We're figuring all of this our as we do it, suggestions are welcome.

version_five 3y ago
Thanks for replying. I hope you and others can find a way to make open source more sustainable without compromising the projects. Like I alluded to with my prisoners dilemma comment above, I think there is an optimum for everyone where companies try and make the open source project itself as valuable as possible instead of extracting value from it, and I'm happy hear about businesses that are legitimately trying to get us there.
- sytse 3y ago
  Thanks for your response, I appreciate it. One thing that is a big risk to the optimum is open core companies relicensing the open source code after the project becomes popular, to prevent this some of our companies are set up as public benefit companies https://opencoreventures.com/blog/2022-11-introducing-authentik-security/ https://opencoreventures.com/blog/2022-11-introducing-authen...
  - dtaht 3y ago