4 ms·

> Closed Source > For a sustainable business. Especially when also associated with "Developer Friendly", seeing "closed source" with "sustainable" hurts so ba

by jraph 3y ago

> Closed Source > For a sustainable business. Especially when also associated with "Developer Friendly", seeing "closed source" with "sustainable" hurts so bad. I hope it does not persuade too many people. People should know that with open source software, they can rely on it not to disappear overnight if a company behind it vanishes. This is sustainable. I work for an open source company without VC money that has been running for 20 years soon. They are ways to do open source and sustainable at the same time.

pastacacioepepe 3y ago
> People should know that with open source software, they can rely on it not to disappear overnight if a company behind it vanishes. I've seen so many OSS projects abandoned because the maintainers couldn't find the time, given they had to work full-time on something else that would allow them to pay the bills.
- toastercat 3y ago
  I've seen the same, but with closed-source projects, and then there is zero hope of it ever being revived because no one can fork it. :( At least with OSS, you have the power to patch it and recompile yourself.
  - kageiit 3y ago
    I feel if the product is valuable enough and solves a real pain point, even if the backing company dies, an alternative will take its place. I have also seen models where the source is made available just before that happens. For eg: https://www.placemark.io/post/placemark-is-winding-down https://www.placemark.io/post/placemark-is-winding-down
- jraph 3y ago
  Of course. You still need to make your project sustainable in some way. You can sell support. You can sell consulting. You can do it the curl way and make yourself hired for developing your useful thing full time. Not saying it's easy. Building a product and selling it in a way or another is not easy. As a sibling comment say, at least the source is here, if you've come to rely on this unmaintained piece of code at least something is possible. But I was mostly reacting to the association of "Closed Source" and "For sustainable business", like if sustainable business was not possible with open source. It is. Many companies succeed in this.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    Doesn't work for tons of domains, e.g. native desktop software, games, good developer tooling like Enterprise Architect or OutSystems.
    - jraph 3y ago
      > native desktop software But it can. I mentioned Igalia and MediaInfo, and developed on this at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38556450#38557836 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38556450#38557836 I don't really know about games and good developer tooling, so I can't speak for these domains. Games are probably particularly tough. But I really think people may pay you for implementing features they need, buy support and for doing custom dev work. That last one takes your time out of your main product though, but if you manage to do custom work on top of your main product, it can still be a good deal.
      - pjmlp 3y ago
        Regular people, that already do pirate software a lot, see open source as free beer, and won't pay for any kind of support, rather have family members as usual. With commercial desktop software at least there is the shadow of the law, thus some companies do survive despite piracy. Hence why digital stores are so beloved by companies selling desktop like applications. I bet there is hardly any company sustaining their business from sales on F-Droid.
lolinder 3y ago
I'm torn on this. My absolute favorite piece of developer tooling is the JetBrains IDEs, which far outstrip all fully open source alternatives. They're partially open source, but the reason why JetBrains can make such great tools is because their model allows them to pay developers to work on their tools full time. I love open source, but OP isn't wrong to decide to prioritize building a sustainable business over releasing their code. Whether you personally prefer the guarantees that FOSS provides or the benefits that having salaried employees working on the project full time provides is a personal decision.
- jraph 3y ago
  But I'm paid full time by my open source company, like my 60 colleagues, and the stuff we build is fully open source, except for custom, consulting projects based on this open source software we build. Open core is at least something (and I'm forced to agree with you, IntelliJ mostly kills everything, I capitulated and ended up adopting the community version recently against other IDEs, initially for its Java debugger) but you can pay devs full time with completely open source stuff. Companies are more than willing to pay for support, consulting or even paid pre-built binaries that come with a bit of support, when it's more convenient. Again, not saying it's easy, and each project is different, but that's something possible.
  - lolinder 3y ago
    What company are you working for? What is the business model? Most successful open source companies I can think of are server-side applications or Linux distros, where the company sells support or hosting. I'm not sure how that would work for a desktop app.
    - jraph 3y ago
      > where the company sells support or hosting Yep, you got this. We also sell open source extensions (yep, you could build and download the code, and strip the license handling, but somehow companies will pay for the convenience of having the install and upgrade done automatically - they also know that they support the company behind the thing they use, in a way that can be easily justified to their accounting department, with an invoice, and get some support hours included, which they like. Paying for something that is paid is easier than donating!). And we also do (a lot of) consulting. For desktop applications, it might be harder indeed. Though JetBrains does have an extension store and could do the same, and also sell support. Not sure about the consulting, but why not? Maybe they could sell some of the expertise they have on actually a big number of topics. I'm sure companies would be eager to pay them to implement feature in their IDEs they need, or to build components specific to their setup / projects. I'm discovering that companies will spend money on all sorts of things, I'm actually somewhat surprised by this. Igalia [3], for instance, does this with browsers. They sell consulting around browsers and also get paid to contribute features in the big engines. I mentioned curl earlier, Daniel gets paid for doing commercial support on curl [1]: > I work for wolfSSL from home doing commercial curl support. If you need help to fix curl problems, fix your app's use of libcurl, add features to curl, fix curl bugs, optimize your curl use or libcurl education for your developers... Then I'm your man. Contact us! There's also MediaInfo [2], an open source tool to get all sorts of information on videos. They get paid to implement features and to do consulting. I'm sure you can sell support / consulting for all sorts of things. > What company are you working for? XWiki. [1] https://daniel.haxx.se/ https://daniel.haxx.se/ [2] https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo [3] https://www.igalia.com/ https://www.igalia.com/
no_wizard 3y ago
there are different classes of this. I think the fact there are already an abundant amount of free and good tools for debugging JavaScript - many of which you don't even need extensions to use, its simply knowing how to get around the builtin debugger and inspector - make this class of product harder to make money off of. Something like say a database is much harder to replicate and has a very high barrier to entry by comparison and have more verticals for actually acquiring and charging customers of the software Neither of these are judgements for or against a thing, simply wanted to highlight the realities. What I will say is this makes the barrier of entry for something like this very high before someone is willing to open their wallet.
throw10920 3y ago
> I hope it does not persuade too many people. It's persuaded me, because it's true. Open-source is not a sustainable economic model, nor (with a few rare exceptions) business model. > with open source software, they can rely on it not to disappear overnight if a company behind it vanishes. This is sustainable. You're intentionally conflating two very different uses of the word "sustainable". This is not what the poster meant.
petre 3y ago
That's where I stopped reading and closed the page.

by jraph 3y ago

pastacacioepepe 3y ago

> People should know that with open source software, they can rely on it not to disappear overnight if a company behind it vanishes. I've seen so many OSS projects abandoned because the maintainers couldn't find the time, given they had to work full-time on something else that would allow them to pay the bills.

toastercat 3y ago
I've seen the same, but with closed-source projects, and then there is zero hope of it ever being revived because no one can fork it. :( At least with OSS, you have the power to patch it and recompile yourself.
- kageiit 3y ago
  I feel if the product is valuable enough and solves a real pain point, even if the backing company dies, an alternative will take its place. I have also seen models where the source is made available just before that happens. For eg: https://www.placemark.io/post/placemark-is-winding-down https://www.placemark.io/post/placemark-is-winding-down
jraph 3y ago
Of course. You still need to make your project sustainable in some way. You can sell support. You can sell consulting. You can do it the curl way and make yourself hired for developing your useful thing full time. Not saying it's easy. Building a product and selling it in a way or another is not easy. As a sibling comment say, at least the source is here, if you've come to rely on this unmaintained piece of code at least something is possible. But I was mostly reacting to the association of "Closed Source" and "For sustainable business", like if sustainable business was not possible with open source. It is. Many companies succeed in this.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Doesn't work for tons of domains, e.g. native desktop software, games, good developer tooling like Enterprise Architect or OutSystems.
  - jraph 3y ago
    > native desktop software But it can. I mentioned Igalia and MediaInfo, and developed on this at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38556450#38557836 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38556450#38557836 I don't really know about games and good developer tooling, so I can't speak for these domains. Games are probably particularly tough. But I really think people may pay you for implementing features they need, buy support and for doing custom dev work. That last one takes your time out of your main product though, but if you manage to do custom work on top of your main product, it can still be a good deal.
    - pjmlp 3y ago
      Regular people, that already do pirate software a lot, see open source as free beer, and won't pay for any kind of support, rather have family members as usual. With commercial desktop software at least there is the shadow of the law, thus some companies do survive despite piracy. Hence why digital stores are so beloved by companies selling desktop like applications. I bet there is hardly any company sustaining their business from sales on F-Droid.

lolinder 3y ago

I'm torn on this. My absolute favorite piece of developer tooling is the JetBrains IDEs, which far outstrip all fully open source alternatives. They're partially open source, but the reason why JetBrains can make such great tools is because their model allows them to pay developers to work on their tools full time. I love open source, but OP isn't wrong to decide to prioritize building a sustainable business over releasing their code. Whether you personally prefer the guarantees that FOSS provides or the benefits that having salaried employees working on the project full time provides is a personal decision.

jraph 3y ago
But I'm paid full time by my open source company, like my 60 colleagues, and the stuff we build is fully open source, except for custom, consulting projects based on this open source software we build. Open core is at least something (and I'm forced to agree with you, IntelliJ mostly kills everything, I capitulated and ended up adopting the community version recently against other IDEs, initially for its Java debugger) but you can pay devs full time with completely open source stuff. Companies are more than willing to pay for support, consulting or even paid pre-built binaries that come with a bit of support, when it's more convenient. Again, not saying it's easy, and each project is different, but that's something possible.
- lolinder 3y ago
  What company are you working for? What is the business model? Most successful open source companies I can think of are server-side applications or Linux distros, where the company sells support or hosting. I'm not sure how that would work for a desktop app.
  - jraph 3y ago
    > where the company sells support or hosting Yep, you got this. We also sell open source extensions (yep, you could build and download the code, and strip the license handling, but somehow companies will pay for the convenience of having the install and upgrade done automatically - they also know that they support the company behind the thing they use, in a way that can be easily justified to their accounting department, with an invoice, and get some support hours included, which they like. Paying for something that is paid is easier than donating!). And we also do (a lot of) consulting. For desktop applications, it might be harder indeed. Though JetBrains does have an extension store and could do the same, and also sell support. Not sure about the consulting, but why not? Maybe they could sell some of the expertise they have on actually a big number of topics. I'm sure companies would be eager to pay them to implement feature in their IDEs they need, or to build components specific to their setup / projects. I'm discovering that companies will spend money on all sorts of things, I'm actually somewhat surprised by this. Igalia [3], for instance, does this with browsers. They sell consulting around browsers and also get paid to contribute features in the big engines. I mentioned curl earlier, Daniel gets paid for doing commercial support on curl [1]: > I work for wolfSSL from home doing commercial curl support. If you need help to fix curl problems, fix your app's use of libcurl, add features to curl, fix curl bugs, optimize your curl use or libcurl education for your developers... Then I'm your man. Contact us! There's also MediaInfo [2], an open source tool to get all sorts of information on videos. They get paid to implement features and to do consulting. I'm sure you can sell support / consulting for all sorts of things. > What company are you working for? XWiki. [1] https://daniel.haxx.se/ https://daniel.haxx.se/ [2] https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo [3] https://www.igalia.com/ https://www.igalia.com/

no_wizard 3y ago

there are different classes of this. I think the fact there are already an abundant amount of free and good tools for debugging JavaScript - many of which you don't even need extensions to use, its simply knowing how to get around the builtin debugger and inspector - make this class of product harder to make money off of. Something like say a database is much harder to replicate and has a very high barrier to entry by comparison and have more verticals for actually acquiring and charging customers of the software Neither of these are judgements for or against a thing, simply wanted to highlight the realities. What I will say is this makes the barrier of entry for something like this very high before someone is willing to open their wallet.

throw10920 3y ago

> I hope it does not persuade too many people. It's persuaded me, because it's true. Open-source is not a sustainable economic model, nor (with a few rare exceptions) business model. > with open source software, they can rely on it not to disappear overnight if a company behind it vanishes. This is sustainable. You're intentionally conflating two very different uses of the word "sustainable". This is not what the poster meant.

petre 3y ago

That's where I stopped reading and closed the page.