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This is a dumb title for a good article. In that it makes is seem like he is talking about OSS software. The software that powers the entire Silicon Valley tech

This is a dumb title for a good article. In that it makes is seem like he is talking about OSS software. The software that powers the entire Silicon Valley tech empire. Linux and OSS power Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc, right down to your 1-2 person startups. He's not talking about that -- he's talking about open source software sales model used by companies like Redhat and HashiCorp. The threat here is that you're developing in the open, trying to up-sell enterprise features, professional services, and support. Then you have XYZ startup appear, they take your open-source code, repackages it and then sells enterprise features, professional services, and support. They basically leech off your OSS code and community, provide nothing back, and actively compete with you. It's brutal.

israrkhan 3y ago
They are probably safe from XYZ startup. The real threat comes from XYZ enterprise. Like what Amazon did to Elastic.
- rbanffy 3y ago
  OTOH, if they licensed their software under the AGPL, Amazon would not be able to offer it as a service without opening their secret sauce, whatever it is.
worik 3y ago
> Then you have XYZ startup appears, they takes your open-source code, repackages it and then sells enterprise features, professional services, and support. That is a feature of the model, not a bug. Exactly that happened to Git. Good. Happening at last in social media with Mastodon The point is to have a lot of smaller companies rather than one or two huge companies playing "lock in"
- WestCoastJustin 3y ago
  Reality is it is sort of mixed. For the OSS company actually building the product, you end up playing whack-a-mole in that anyone can spin up a competitor over the weekend. Look at what happened with Docker. They completely changed the landscape of running code locally and in production and was run out of town. Everyone and their dog took the code and re-packaged it and competed with Docker. Then compare that with VMware, they completely changed the landscape of running code locally and in production but they were able to protect that value and thrive as a company. There is definitely a lesson in there. Sure, maybe this is a feature but if you're about to launch an open source sales model company you probably need to think really hard about that idea.
  - duped 3y ago
    The result is that the industry got better container run times because they had to compete with each other. Competition is a good thing - it gives us better products and services at lower prices. And Docker still had the ecosystem, which they could have dug a deeper moat around. But they didn't, and they failed. And not for nothing, VMWare has a significantly deeper technological moat than Docker. Containers are not hard to implement, virtualization is.
  - rbanffy 3y ago
    > Then compare that with VMware, Their virtualization tools are niche, being squeezed by whatever the cloud provider offers for "free" on one side, and KVM (and platform-native hypervisors) on the other. You rarely hear them mentioned.
- madeofpalk 3y ago
  git or mastodon are not 'silicon valley'. Yes, it is a feature for others to build upon Mastodon. It's a bit more problematic for, say, hasicorp. They don't like that.
  - zeroCalories 3y ago
    They also benefit from making their software open source because it drives people to adot it.
    - vetrom 3y ago
      They also benefited from a large ecosystem of third party contributors, whom were not (at least, visibly?) considered as stakeholders when Hashicorp implemented this license change. I'm pretty sure no-one contributing to a product's ecosystem likes it when the previous agreements related to IP underpinning the ecosystem is rugpulled out from under them.
- obscurette 3y ago
  > Exactly that happened to Git. Good. Happening at last in social media with Mastodon. No, it's a different thing. Git is not based on OSS code from BitKeeper and Mastodon isn't based on OSS code from FB/X/whatever.
- bananapub 3y ago
  > Exactly that happened to Git. what a bizarre claim. Git was written by Linus because Larry McVoy kicked him off BitKeeper, and then the biggest Git ecosystem software spinoffs (GitHub) are entirely closed source.
vmatsiiako 3y ago
HashiCorp and its CEO are too focused on their competitors while they really should be focusing on their customers

israrkhan 3y ago

They are probably safe from XYZ startup. The real threat comes from XYZ enterprise. Like what Amazon did to Elastic.

rbanffy 3y ago
OTOH, if they licensed their software under the AGPL, Amazon would not be able to offer it as a service without opening their secret sauce, whatever it is.

worik 3y ago

> Then you have XYZ startup appears, they takes your open-source code, repackages it and then sells enterprise features, professional services, and support. That is a feature of the model, not a bug. Exactly that happened to Git. Good. Happening at last in social media with Mastodon The point is to have a lot of smaller companies rather than one or two huge companies playing "lock in"

WestCoastJustin 3y ago
Reality is it is sort of mixed. For the OSS company actually building the product, you end up playing whack-a-mole in that anyone can spin up a competitor over the weekend. Look at what happened with Docker. They completely changed the landscape of running code locally and in production and was run out of town. Everyone and their dog took the code and re-packaged it and competed with Docker. Then compare that with VMware, they completely changed the landscape of running code locally and in production but they were able to protect that value and thrive as a company. There is definitely a lesson in there. Sure, maybe this is a feature but if you're about to launch an open source sales model company you probably need to think really hard about that idea.
- duped 3y ago
  The result is that the industry got better container run times because they had to compete with each other. Competition is a good thing - it gives us better products and services at lower prices. And Docker still had the ecosystem, which they could have dug a deeper moat around. But they didn't, and they failed. And not for nothing, VMWare has a significantly deeper technological moat than Docker. Containers are not hard to implement, virtualization is.
- rbanffy 3y ago
  > Then compare that with VMware, Their virtualization tools are niche, being squeezed by whatever the cloud provider offers for "free" on one side, and KVM (and platform-native hypervisors) on the other. You rarely hear them mentioned.
madeofpalk 3y ago
git or mastodon are not 'silicon valley'. Yes, it is a feature for others to build upon Mastodon. It's a bit more problematic for, say, hasicorp. They don't like that.
- zeroCalories 3y ago
  They also benefit from making their software open source because it drives people to adot it.
  - vetrom 3y ago
    They also benefited from a large ecosystem of third party contributors, whom were not (at least, visibly?) considered as stakeholders when Hashicorp implemented this license change. I'm pretty sure no-one contributing to a product's ecosystem likes it when the previous agreements related to IP underpinning the ecosystem is rugpulled out from under them.
obscurette 3y ago
> Exactly that happened to Git. Good. Happening at last in social media with Mastodon. No, it's a different thing. Git is not based on OSS code from BitKeeper and Mastodon isn't based on OSS code from FB/X/whatever.
bananapub 3y ago
> Exactly that happened to Git. what a bizarre claim. Git was written by Linus because Larry McVoy kicked him off BitKeeper, and then the biggest Git ecosystem software spinoffs (GitHub) are entirely closed source.

vmatsiiako 3y ago

HashiCorp and its CEO are too focused on their competitors while they really should be focusing on their customers