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Show HN: A source-available billing system I've spent 18 months building
- popalchemist 2y agoSource available is a no man's land. People who want source code also want MIT (or similarly permissible license). People who don't care about source, don't care if it's available.
- n42 2y agoI have contributed plenty of bug fixes for tools we use at work. I have never had any concern about the license or philosophies of the maintainers, because at the end of the day, all I cared about was unblocking my work. The fact that they own my code is inconsequential to that goal. A rising tide lifts all boats, and so on.
- Aeolun 2y ago> The fact that they own my code is inconsequential to that goal. To some extend. Projects that are “open-source” but not MIT piss me off because they make my life harder. I know that’s not strictly fair, but nonetheless true.
- ChadNauseam 2y agoHow do they make your life harder compared to projects where the source is not available?
- holowoodman 2y agoMaybe he works for a proprietary-software company that wants to just take the code and never give back. Or maybe he is dissatisfied with lots of OSS licenses being mutually incompatible. But it is weird that just MIT seems to be acceptable to him, I would think some BSD licenses variant would be OK as well. But maybe even an acknowledgement of the hard work of others is too much to ask for...
- Aeolun 2y agoWhen the source is not available, I don’t have to think about whether or not I can use it. When the source is available, I need to carefully consider what the license is, and if it’s anything other than MIT I’ll have to go through a whole approval process to use the thing. Any experience with corporate means you know the thing cannot be used if you value your sanity. I just fundamentally believe that making the source available should be the same as making it free/unencumbered. If you need the legal system to enforce your license for you something is going wrong.
- preinheimer 2y agoI dunno, we're using a recurring billing provider. There's a lot of times reading the source would have been more productive than talking to support.
- khana 2y ago[dead]
- kube-system 2y ago>People who don't care about source, don't care if it's available. Presuming the customer is a single person. Plenty of business software is sold as proprietary with some source available pieces -- where the business doesn't care about the license, but IT wants to maintain/adjust/integrate the customizable parts.
- lukevdp 2y agoSigned up for the trial, I get an empty screen that says "Environments". Can't seem to do anything!
- Sytten 2y agoWhy are people still complaining about this? It doesn't try to pass as OSS when it is not, it makes an effort at transparency when they didn't need to, seems bootstrap with an entrepreneurial spirit. That should celebrate, kudos!
- bohrd_at_work 2y agoFirm agree. I guess I'll just never understand the snarkiness and cynicism that so many people bring to this site. What motivates that attitude?
- protocolture 2y agoLooks a bit like splynx, or at least splynx from 6 years ago. What industries is this being used in already?
- lionkor 2y agoCool license [0]! [0]: https://github.com/billabear/billabear/blob/main/LICENSE.md https://github.com/billabear/billabear/blob/main/LICENSE.md
- yamumsahoe 2y ago[flagged]
- notpushkin 2y agoFrom what I see it's basically BSL (and BSL was used until 4 months ago). It's neat that the new license is using “plain English” language, but were there any specific problems with BSL that prompted this change?
- hnbad 2y agoThe short answer is that FSL was designed as an evolution of BSL that doesn't allow for as much variance in what the license means in practice, i.e. it got rid of the "additional grants" and mandates a shorter, fixed expiration date. As I understand it, nothing FSL does couldn't be expressed in a modified BSL but having it as its own license makes it less ambiguous by not allowing for much variation beyond which specific license it converts to upon expiration.
- ezekg 2y agoTo add: the problem with the BUSL was that every variation of the BUSL was effectively its own license. The FSL reins that in so that a company's legal department could approve FSL full-scale, allowing all FSL projects to be used. The same full-scale approval could never happen for the BUSL due to the variances.
- fasteo 2y agohttps://fsl.software/ https://fsl.software/
- forkerenok 2y ago
- louloulouhoo 2y agoSuper cool. I feel like images with fewer colours will work best.
- hnbad 2y agoI was very surprised to see that it's localised (at least into German) and even has an imprint (in the German language version at least) despite being based in the UK. I guess my main concern with using it as a SaaS would be that it's located outside the EU (which creates GDPR headaches despite what "GDPR compliant" services outside the EU will tell you) and whether this also means it can be adapted to comply with any given country's laws (e.g. in 2025 laws will come into effect in Germany and the EU that will place certain requirements on B2B "e-billing" such as using a specific XML format).
- that_guy_iain 2y ago> I guess my main concern with using it as a SaaS would be that it's located outside the EU (which creates GDPR headaches despite what "GDPR compliant" services outside the EU will tell you) and whether this also means it can be adapted to comply with any given country's laws (e.g. in 2025 laws will come into effect in Germany and the EU that will place certain requirements on B2B "e-billing" such as using a specific XML format). Well the UK is GDPR compliant it literally has the entire GDPR law as GDPR (UK). If there is an issue in the future I'll just move the company to Germany. The servers are currently in Germany. I will be implementing everything and anything to comply with EU laws.
- Sander_Marechal 2y ago> The servers are currently in Germany With what company? All good if it's a EU company like Hertzner, but it can still give GDPR headaches if you are hosting on e.g. AWS in Frankfurt because Amazon is still a US company.
- CRConrad 2y ago> > The servers are currently in Germany > With what company? All good if it's a EU company like Hertzner, but it can still give GDPR headaches if you are hosting on e.g. AWS in Frankfurt because Amazon is still a US company. Says Hetzner (with only one r) in the first FAQ, "Is BillaBear GDPR Compliant?", on the homepage. [ETA:] Could of course have been added after you asked here; I only checked it out just now. [/ETA]
- yayoohooyahoo 2y agoI'm not sure I understand what this does compared to Stripe? It actually seems like all the features are what Stripe already does.
- that_guy_iain 2y agoSorry, just had time to come back to this thread. Stripe Billing doesn't allow you to: * Control the templates of your pdfs * Control the templates of your emails * Control how your emails are being sent * It makes having multiple subscription items a lot easier. * It allows you to define tax rates on a customer and product level * It allows you to define tax rates on a country and state level * Have multiple brands on the same account Also, it's a lot cheaper than Stripe Billing even the cloud hosted version is. Stripe Tax is even more expensive.
- meiraleal 2y agoIf that's the case, it is a great software, no?
- yayoohooyahoo 2y agoAgain maybe I'm missing something but since it's built on top of Stripe, I would expect that it does more than just Stripe. Otherwise I don't see why I would try to install this?
- skrebbel 2y agoFor one, Stripe Billing has been getting pretty pricey
- mynameisvlad 2y agoOnce again, this tool builds on top of Stripe and Stripe alone. You aren’t really escaping their fees by using this tool.
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- antaviana 2y agoI would recommend to have the Spanish website linguisticaly reviewed. There is an awkward mix of formal and informal sentences, and also some too literal translations here and there. I would also recommend localizing the screenshots into Spanish (I’m assuming the product is localized).
- KingOfCoders 2y agoGerman doesn't work either, most words are too large.
- yard2010 2y agoWhile working on i18n projects I always test German first. It breaks most of the UIs.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- 91bananas 2y agoOmg i have seen this so much in our i18n translations, UI is completely broken. So there is a proper solution for this?
- willsmith72 2y agoMy German friend's recommendation: We can read english quite well.
- NetOpWibby 2y agoLMAO pretty good
- electroly 2y agoIt's no joke, really. I worked on a product (B2B, not consumer software) that was primarily sold in the US and Germany. Not only did we leave the product in American English, but the Germans requested that we force all numeric inputs/outputs to use American formatting (period for decimal point, comma for thousands separator, even on computers configured for German formatting). To them, it was American software and thus it made sense for it to be in American English. Their English was certainly better than our German.
- nikolayasdf123 2y ago> "With out of the box SDKs integration is easy" I read it like "without". I think you mean "with out-of-the-box"?
- that_guy_iain 2y agoI looked this up. It's "out of the box" and not "out-of-the-box".
- kstrauser 2y ago“Out of the box SDKs make integration easy.”
- ramon156 2y agoCan I help out with the translations? Dutch is awful
- that_guy_iain 2y agoIndeed you can all the translations are https://github.com/billabear/billabear/blob/main/assets/billabear/translations/ https://github.com/billabear/billabear/blob/main/assets/bill... If you're willing and able to create PRs and I'm able to merge.
- 6510 2y agoeen krachtig belastingsysteem
- ruune 2y agokrachtig is such a great word
- elaus 2y agoGerman as well. I guess it's AI translated on a string by string basis, therefore translating the same thing into different words when it's in another paragraph or list item (missing context).
- kfir 2y agoDaring tech stack! (50%+ in php)
- badcppdev 2y agoBoring tech stack!
- datavirtue 2y agoThere is nothing more enjoyable and fun than developing on a mature, boring tech stack. We might be able to keep web devs more than a year if the kneejerk choice wasn't React or Angular (Vue3 is a joy).
- koito17 2y agoWho decides what is "boring"? Plenty of people have stuck with React for nearly a decade and components just as old continue to work in the latest version of React. Meanwhile, Vue 3 is such a breaking change from Vue 2 that people either abandon Vue altogether or chase bugs with the 2-to-3 bridge. Does that make React "boring and mature" compared to Vue 3? If not, why not?
- chimen 2y agoonly if you manage to go past npm install
- badcppdev 2y agoThe Tax Solution page doesn't make it clear as to whether it handles US State Sales Tax problems?
- stevenschmatz 2y agoSales tax in the US is exceedingly complex. It's simply out of scope for most companies to tackle without using a specialized sales tax vendor. To properly create a model of just US states' rules, you need to take into account dozens of factors like product type, exemptions, various address types, fulfillment info, and more. You can get to a basic level of compliance fairly easily with state- and customer-based rates in select circumstances. But unless you dig deep, you will get things wrong, and you will only know about it when you get a potentially expensive audit years later. Context: CTO of [Taxwire](https://taxwire.co https://taxwire.co), writing software for sales tax.
- 2Gkashmiri 2y agoI ask you too. Is there a us sales tax software development documentation somewhere ? We are looking to expand an open source accounting software into usa but without sales tax, it wont be usable for businesses I suppose.
- that_guy_iain 2y ago> The Tax Solution page doesn't make it clear as to whether it handles US State Sales Tax problems? I will fix that. It handles US State Sales Tax to some extent. So it has state tax rules and thresholds. So will only apply the tax if the threshold or there is a nexus. However, it doesn't have the polygon tax areas that would be needed for cities. For example, Illinois doesn't have SaaS tax but Chicago does. That is very high on my list of things to do. But you could work around that right now by doing it on a customer level. Where you set the tax rate for the customer. But I will definitely improve that text on the tax page to explain how it hands the US tax issues.
- 2Gkashmiri 2y agoDo you know any resource on us state sales tax ? From software development pov. From invoicing rules to tax collection, reporting and allied stuff. Or for that matter, sales tax/ vat of countries ? I suppose there should be
- karolist 2y agoIf anyone wonders what the stack is and how to host it -> https://github.com/billabear/hosting-docker-compose/blob/main/docker-compose.yaml https://github.com/billabear/hosting-docker-compose/blob/mai...
- mtmail 2y agoPHP, Postgres, Stripe API
- bmonteirog 2y agoSigned up for the free trial... but I cant see anything on the dashboard, only a blank page with an Environments h1. :( Cool concept though. Oh! and the ui from the screenshots is way better than the live version
- dvh 2y agoHow much does a say $5 payment cancellation costs? I've heard these diy billing systems have very high cancellation fees.
- Malidir 2y agoYour website isn't responsive, the whitespace at the sides isn't preserved
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- pvg 2y agoA discussion/Show HN last year https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36491975 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36491975
- spaghetticoder 2y agoThe Italian translation needs some love, let me know if you need a hand with it.
- 0xbadcafebee 2y agoDoes anyone genuinely make their choices for what product to use based on if its source is available? I don't want to read the source code, I want to use the product. If there is a bug, I want you to fix it. If you don't fix it, why am I paying you / using it? Assuming I am a programmer (many users aren't) and make my own patch, and you don't merge it, I'm still screwed. Source only helps me if I'm the one running the code. So the fact that your SaaS is source available has no bearing on my use of it.
- ezekg 2y agoI think a big value prop is that it reduces vendor lock-in, especially when depending on a new company. If the company fails, you can self-host and even fork. You can also choose to self-host for compliance reasons if your sector doesn't jive well with multi-tenant SaaS.
- nijave 2y agoSource available can be helpful if you want a local dev setup or testing environment. >Source only helps me if I'm the one running the code Many times I've gotten better support when I open a Github issue and send the link to support--usually I can get around all the canned troubleshooting steps and get to an engineer quicker. >So the fact that your SaaS is source available has no bearing on my use of it You can tell if the product is garbage before you pay for it (does this place review changes, do they have automated tests??) imo it's still helpful although small. If you're looking to run it yourself, sometimes source available can quickly be ruled out--especially if your company reviews and tracks license terms and doesn't want the headache of something custom/complicated
- renewiltord 2y agoYeah. Part of why I picked Kong at a previous job was that it was modifiable and open-source, and the enterprise plugins were modifiable and source-available. It allowed us to deploy custom versions of them for our own use-case.
- jckahn 2y agoYes. I avoid closed source software whenever it is practical to do so.
- bofadeez 2y agoWay too expensive
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]