4 ms·

Yeah, it's becoming more common in my group of SWEs to specifically opt to NOT use VC backed software. Everyone has stories about companies closing shop and pro

Yeah, it's becoming more common in my group of SWEs to specifically opt to NOT use VC backed software. Everyone has stories about companies closing shop and projects failing to continue onward. Why would Dioxus be any different? If VC's cared about tearing down walled gardens of Google and Apple, why not explicitly donate the money instead? Why have strings attached at all?

riku_iki 3y ago
> it's becoming more common in my group of SWEs to specifically opt to NOT use VC backed software so, what they use instead? Bugged, dead OSS dropped by creators?..
- wpietri 3y ago
  "There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
- azemetre 3y ago
  No, normal OSS whose existence isn't tied to VC mostly. It's not like a hard/fast rule, just a heuristic.
  - riku_iki 3y ago
    There are very few good quality, stable, active OSS projects which is not fed by VC/corps money. In this case (UI for rust) there is no much choice.
    - fabrice_d 3y ago
      Funding by VC and funding by corps sponsors are 2 very different things. Check how linux desktop projects such as Gnome & KDE kept the lights on for >20 years without VC funding.
      - riku_iki 3y ago
        > Funding by VC and funding by corps sponsors are 2 very different things Ok, if you find corp which will give you funding for your project without any expectations, then it is a win. But I am not sure how often this happens.
        fabrice_d 3y ago
        There are expectations of course, but the ones from a corp will be different from a VC. Typically the corp will expect you to build something they need and can use, a VC will only want financial return on investment.
jkelleyrtp 3y ago
We have grants and corporate sponsors to keep the project alive even if the VC money runs out. This was all a side project for me at first, so I went down the "donation" route in the beginning. Donations are great but they're not how the system works, unfortunately. Dioxus could never compete with the two most valuable companies on earth if it wasn't a self-sustaining business. VC just lets me scale the team from 2 people to 10(?) and have some cash to iterate. We were "profitable" even before taking venture money. Now we're able to take on more moonshot-type projects like the blitz renderer, a deploy platform, UI fuzz tooling, and more. We're using our seed round exclusively to make dioxus as awesome as possible, so even if it doesn't work out at a venture level, there's still a really cool, polished, end-to-end app framework that you can build and ship with in Rust.
- azemetre 3y ago
  That's fair and you're welcome to chart your own path, but I like what Tauri does with their governance model: https://dracc.commonsconservancy.org/0035/ https://dracc.commonsconservancy.org/0035/ https://tauri.app/about/governance https://tauri.app/about/governance Just for me personally, I don't see the financialization of open source software as an intrinsic good thing and I reflect my technology choices to support this when applicable.
  - jkelleyrtp 3y ago
    We'll probably explore that in the future but right now our team is literally just 2.5 fulltime engineers. Tauri is seeking monetization via CrabNebula, but I can see how the governance structure would secure more confidence in the OSS side. http://crabnebula.dev http://crabnebula.dev
nemothekid 3y ago
For a GUI based project, I'd actually prefer they were VC and/or corporate backed with clear governance. OSS backend libraries are easily forked, and someone is usually willing to hack on a database library, but GUIs tend to be boring to work on, and designers don't tend to have to the same gumption to work for free that developers do.

riku_iki 3y ago

> it's becoming more common in my group of SWEs to specifically opt to NOT use VC backed software so, what they use instead? Bugged, dead OSS dropped by creators?..

wpietri 3y ago
"There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
azemetre 3y ago
No, normal OSS whose existence isn't tied to VC mostly. It's not like a hard/fast rule, just a heuristic.
- riku_iki 3y ago
  There are very few good quality, stable, active OSS projects which is not fed by VC/corps money. In this case (UI for rust) there is no much choice.
  - fabrice_d 3y ago
    Funding by VC and funding by corps sponsors are 2 very different things. Check how linux desktop projects such as Gnome & KDE kept the lights on for >20 years without VC funding.
    - riku_iki 3y ago
      > Funding by VC and funding by corps sponsors are 2 very different things Ok, if you find corp which will give you funding for your project without any expectations, then it is a win. But I am not sure how often this happens.
      - fabrice_d 3y ago
        There are expectations of course, but the ones from a corp will be different from a VC. Typically the corp will expect you to build something they need and can use, a VC will only want financial return on investment.

jkelleyrtp 3y ago

We have grants and corporate sponsors to keep the project alive even if the VC money runs out. This was all a side project for me at first, so I went down the "donation" route in the beginning. Donations are great but they're not how the system works, unfortunately. Dioxus could never compete with the two most valuable companies on earth if it wasn't a self-sustaining business. VC just lets me scale the team from 2 people to 10(?) and have some cash to iterate. We were "profitable" even before taking venture money. Now we're able to take on more moonshot-type projects like the blitz renderer, a deploy platform, UI fuzz tooling, and more. We're using our seed round exclusively to make dioxus as awesome as possible, so even if it doesn't work out at a venture level, there's still a really cool, polished, end-to-end app framework that you can build and ship with in Rust.

azemetre 3y ago
That's fair and you're welcome to chart your own path, but I like what Tauri does with their governance model: https://dracc.commonsconservancy.org/0035/ https://dracc.commonsconservancy.org/0035/ https://tauri.app/about/governance https://tauri.app/about/governance Just for me personally, I don't see the financialization of open source software as an intrinsic good thing and I reflect my technology choices to support this when applicable.
- jkelleyrtp 3y ago
  We'll probably explore that in the future but right now our team is literally just 2.5 fulltime engineers. Tauri is seeking monetization via CrabNebula, but I can see how the governance structure would secure more confidence in the OSS side. http://crabnebula.dev http://crabnebula.dev

nemothekid 3y ago

For a GUI based project, I'd actually prefer they were VC and/or corporate backed with clear governance. OSS backend libraries are easily forked, and someone is usually willing to hack on a database library, but GUIs tend to be boring to work on, and designers don't tend to have to the same gumption to work for free that developers do.