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I think it’s not fair that we expect every developer tool to be OSS. Most things that are fully OSS like react, typescript, etc. and even Linux to a large degre

by leoh 1y ago

I think it’s not fair that we expect every developer tool to be OSS. Most things that are fully OSS like react, typescript, etc. and even Linux to a large degree are supported by humongous amounts of cash from large tech companies. When a smaller firm devoted to developer tools like datastar decides to monetize, moreover, they are doing so without leaning on ad monetization, which many big firms rely upon, or other means that are not particularly nice. I think it’s really important we cut folks working on paid dev tools a break. The alternative is that we end up in a world that is largely merely defined by huge tech companies.

leros 1y ago
It's true for things other than developer tools. I built a free utility that became popular and people started asking for more features. I spent several months working full-time on building out improvement and put 10% of the new features behind a paywall. I took nothing away and made 90% of the new features free too. The stuff I put behind a paywall is stuff I thought would only apply to professional business users. Just the fact that I had paid features made people upset. I got a ton of angry emails asking why the tool was no longer free. I also used to make some money via donations through BuyMeACoffee and those nearly completely stopped.
- sudodevnull 1y ago
  Sorry to hear that man. It does really sour the ideas of the MIT license especially. It's a social problem and won't be solved by tech. My response now is a pretty hard line, cool... then fork it. Anything softer doesn't matter cause if they really cared they'd already be actively helping.
- mauvehaus 1y ago
  If I throw code up on GitHub, I try to be real clear that if it's good enough for me, it's done as far as I'm concerned[0]. I'm also licensed under WTFPL. I figure if that scares off any commercial interests, so much the better. You're probably a lot more fully baked than I am, so this path may not work for you. [0] https://github.com/longwalkwoodworking/angle-dangler#what-if-theres-a-bug https://github.com/longwalkwoodworking/angle-dangler#what-if...
cael450 1y ago
Yeah, it is weird to me how many people expect free stuff, and when they get it, they act entitled to all of the developer’s time and get angry if they don’t get it. No other industry operates this way.
- brookst 1y ago
  And the whole “the developer gave me so much for free for so many years that I am now entitled to never pay for their work in the future” attitude. It’s bizarre.
naet 1y ago
I have to work with some closed source external tech at my job right now and I hate it so much. Probably more to do with the specific tech than the open/closed factor, but it feels really bad whenever there's an issue or an improvement that could be made but I'm not allowed to fork or directly change the dependency. I honestly feel so burned by it that I will think strongly about ever joining another company that isn't using more open source tech. I have no opinion on datastar, and I support things like tailwind selling pre built tailwind components to make money (not that I use either, but idea wise I'm happy for them). But sometimes working with closed source is a real pain.
cameronh90 1y ago
The problem is the rug-pull itself, not that the rug isn't there. I don't have an opinion on Datastar, as I'd never heard of it until this article, but over the past year or two there have been a _lot_ of open source projects that have been converted to proprietary licenses, very often after being invested by VCs or PEs. It's happened to me a number of times now where the license for the features we were using went from open source to proprietary with 5-6 figure cost. Developers gotta eat, I get that. But often the reason I'm using one of these components is it's a hobby or low value project where it simply doesn't bring in the income to justify paying for a license. If I had known this would happen, I would never have used it in the first place, used an alternative, or maybe just never bothered with the project. But now you're in an awkward position where the choice is either pay-up or re-do a bunch of work.
- sergiotapia 1y ago
  I think it's totally normal and correct to have a license where a company like Amazon can't come in, steal the volunteer work of hundreds of developers, slap their logo on it and sell it. I'm sure open source purists do not like this, but the world is the 1980 anymore. It's been 45 years. Things need to adapt. Open source needs to adapt.
  - sarchertech 1y ago
    Yeah we really need to normalize licenses that protect against that. Even GPL doesn’t because everything is SaaS now and companies will just isolate the GPL code to one micro service. AGPL might prevent this but there aren’t a lot of cases that have been litigated. And if they don’t modify the source then then it doesn’t do much IIRC. But “open source” was in control of big business from the start. The open source consortium was a late 90s attempt to co-opt the free software movement and turn it into something business friendly. Tim O’Reilly funded it to start and now it’s funded by big tech companies.
  - crote 1y ago
    > I think it's totally normal and correct to have a license where a company like Amazon can't come in, steal the volunteer work of hundreds of developers, slap their logo on it and sell it. Why shouldn't this to apply to every company - including the one ostensibly shepherding the open source project? I would argue that employing a bunch of core developers doing 10% of the work doesn't entitle you to be the sole entity to monetize the work of the other 90% of the community, but I don't think anyone has come up with a proper license to defend against that yet. Open source indeed needs to adapt, but I don't think the source-available or open-core models we are seeing these days is the right solution. If you really want to prevent third-party entities to profit off your work you'd need to go for something like the AGPL, but that is for obvious reasons not exactly a popular choice.
crote 1y ago
I agree in theory, but the problem is that I have been burned over and over again by proprietary tooling. The interests of the dev tool makers often do not align with my interests as a developer, and that's a problem. Proprietary tool vendors are just trying to create shareholder value. If that means firing the entire dev team and never doing another release, they will do that. If it means switching from "pay once, use forever" to "pay $20 / month", they will do that. If it means going from $20 / month to $2000 / month, they will do that. If it means putting ads inside my IDE, they will do that. Just look at what Broadcom is doing to VMware to see what this can look like in practice. OSS developer tooling is usually made by and for the community. The interests of the dev tool makers align with the interests of the developers using it, because they are the same people. There are no incentives to enshittify my developer experience, so I can safely rely on the tooling without worrying about whether it'll still be usable next year. And even if the core team decides they want to make some wildly unpopular changes, the rest of the community can still fork it and continue on their own direction! I really wish it wasn't the case, but there are very few proprietary tool vendors I'd be willing to believe if they promised they wouldn't ruin my day a few years from now by doing a rug pull. Some small just-started firm I've never heard of? Probably not in that list. I would love to cut them a break, but trust has to be earned.
- sarchertech 1y ago
  >OSS developer tooling is usually made by and for the community. The interests of the dev tool makers align with the interests of the developers using it, because they are the same people. That’s the case for the vast majority of projects. Most of them are made and controlled by 1 person. And many that are controlled by more than one person are de facto or even de jure controlled by a single large company. 99.99% of the “community” will never contribute meaningfully to a project. Sure you can fork OSS projects, but for anything remotely complicated doing so will turn into a full time job.
ksec 1y ago
I will post again what I wrote ( slightly eddied ) earlier in the Datastar thread. There is a mainstream generation divide in open source ideology over the past 15-20 years. The modern one is what lots of younger generation agree upon. It should always be open source and continue to be supported by the community. For the interest of Public Good. Some of these project where basics living cost are met money mostly driven by VC, or zero interest rate phenomenon. Preferably GPL or APGL, no body owns the code or even rights, the project belongs to the community. Everything is or should be OSS. When money is involved, donation is the preferred method. At one point Open Core were fine, I believe Sidekicq works on that model for at least 10 years. But I guess now even Pro version of anything is borderline unacceptable as it is "bait and switch". The old folks are basically and mostly take it or leave it. Fork it into my own while taking the maintenance burden too. Sometimes they charge for it, sometimes they dont. They are just sharing something they did to the rest of the world in the hope some may enjoy it. Mostly started out as just a hobby, not something big or professional.

by leoh 1y ago

leros 1y ago

It's true for things other than developer tools. I built a free utility that became popular and people started asking for more features. I spent several months working full-time on building out improvement and put 10% of the new features behind a paywall. I took nothing away and made 90% of the new features free too. The stuff I put behind a paywall is stuff I thought would only apply to professional business users. Just the fact that I had paid features made people upset. I got a ton of angry emails asking why the tool was no longer free. I also used to make some money via donations through BuyMeACoffee and those nearly completely stopped.

sudodevnull 1y ago
Sorry to hear that man. It does really sour the ideas of the MIT license especially. It's a social problem and won't be solved by tech. My response now is a pretty hard line, cool... then fork it. Anything softer doesn't matter cause if they really cared they'd already be actively helping.
mauvehaus 1y ago
If I throw code up on GitHub, I try to be real clear that if it's good enough for me, it's done as far as I'm concerned[0]. I'm also licensed under WTFPL. I figure if that scares off any commercial interests, so much the better. You're probably a lot more fully baked than I am, so this path may not work for you. [0] https://github.com/longwalkwoodworking/angle-dangler#what-if-theres-a-bug https://github.com/longwalkwoodworking/angle-dangler#what-if...

cael450 1y ago

Yeah, it is weird to me how many people expect free stuff, and when they get it, they act entitled to all of the developer’s time and get angry if they don’t get it. No other industry operates this way.

brookst 1y ago
And the whole “the developer gave me so much for free for so many years that I am now entitled to never pay for their work in the future” attitude. It’s bizarre.

naet 1y ago

I have to work with some closed source external tech at my job right now and I hate it so much. Probably more to do with the specific tech than the open/closed factor, but it feels really bad whenever there's an issue or an improvement that could be made but I'm not allowed to fork or directly change the dependency. I honestly feel so burned by it that I will think strongly about ever joining another company that isn't using more open source tech. I have no opinion on datastar, and I support things like tailwind selling pre built tailwind components to make money (not that I use either, but idea wise I'm happy for them). But sometimes working with closed source is a real pain.

cameronh90 1y ago

The problem is the rug-pull itself, not that the rug isn't there. I don't have an opinion on Datastar, as I'd never heard of it until this article, but over the past year or two there have been a _lot_ of open source projects that have been converted to proprietary licenses, very often after being invested by VCs or PEs. It's happened to me a number of times now where the license for the features we were using went from open source to proprietary with 5-6 figure cost. Developers gotta eat, I get that. But often the reason I'm using one of these components is it's a hobby or low value project where it simply doesn't bring in the income to justify paying for a license. If I had known this would happen, I would never have used it in the first place, used an alternative, or maybe just never bothered with the project. But now you're in an awkward position where the choice is either pay-up or re-do a bunch of work.

sergiotapia 1y ago
I think it's totally normal and correct to have a license where a company like Amazon can't come in, steal the volunteer work of hundreds of developers, slap their logo on it and sell it. I'm sure open source purists do not like this, but the world is the 1980 anymore. It's been 45 years. Things need to adapt. Open source needs to adapt.
- sarchertech 1y ago
  Yeah we really need to normalize licenses that protect against that. Even GPL doesn’t because everything is SaaS now and companies will just isolate the GPL code to one micro service. AGPL might prevent this but there aren’t a lot of cases that have been litigated. And if they don’t modify the source then then it doesn’t do much IIRC. But “open source” was in control of big business from the start. The open source consortium was a late 90s attempt to co-opt the free software movement and turn it into something business friendly. Tim O’Reilly funded it to start and now it’s funded by big tech companies.
- crote 1y ago
  > I think it's totally normal and correct to have a license where a company like Amazon can't come in, steal the volunteer work of hundreds of developers, slap their logo on it and sell it. Why shouldn't this to apply to every company - including the one ostensibly shepherding the open source project? I would argue that employing a bunch of core developers doing 10% of the work doesn't entitle you to be the sole entity to monetize the work of the other 90% of the community, but I don't think anyone has come up with a proper license to defend against that yet. Open source indeed needs to adapt, but I don't think the source-available or open-core models we are seeing these days is the right solution. If you really want to prevent third-party entities to profit off your work you'd need to go for something like the AGPL, but that is for obvious reasons not exactly a popular choice.

crote 1y ago

I agree in theory, but the problem is that I have been burned over and over again by proprietary tooling. The interests of the dev tool makers often do not align with my interests as a developer, and that's a problem. Proprietary tool vendors are just trying to create shareholder value. If that means firing the entire dev team and never doing another release, they will do that. If it means switching from "pay once, use forever" to "pay $20 / month", they will do that. If it means going from $20 / month to $2000 / month, they will do that. If it means putting ads inside my IDE, they will do that. Just look at what Broadcom is doing to VMware to see what this can look like in practice. OSS developer tooling is usually made by and for the community. The interests of the dev tool makers align with the interests of the developers using it, because they are the same people. There are no incentives to enshittify my developer experience, so I can safely rely on the tooling without worrying about whether it'll still be usable next year. And even if the core team decides they want to make some wildly unpopular changes, the rest of the community can still fork it and continue on their own direction! I really wish it wasn't the case, but there are very few proprietary tool vendors I'd be willing to believe if they promised they wouldn't ruin my day a few years from now by doing a rug pull. Some small just-started firm I've never heard of? Probably not in that list. I would love to cut them a break, but trust has to be earned.

sarchertech 1y ago
>OSS developer tooling is usually made by and for the community. The interests of the dev tool makers align with the interests of the developers using it, because they are the same people. That’s the case for the vast majority of projects. Most of them are made and controlled by 1 person. And many that are controlled by more than one person are de facto or even de jure controlled by a single large company. 99.99% of the “community” will never contribute meaningfully to a project. Sure you can fork OSS projects, but for anything remotely complicated doing so will turn into a full time job.

ksec 1y ago

I will post again what I wrote ( slightly eddied ) earlier in the Datastar thread. There is a mainstream generation divide in open source ideology over the past 15-20 years. The modern one is what lots of younger generation agree upon. It should always be open source and continue to be supported by the community. For the interest of Public Good. Some of these project where basics living cost are met money mostly driven by VC, or zero interest rate phenomenon. Preferably GPL or APGL, no body owns the code or even rights, the project belongs to the community. Everything is or should be OSS. When money is involved, donation is the preferred method. At one point Open Core were fine, I believe Sidekicq works on that model for at least 10 years. But I guess now even Pro version of anything is borderline unacceptable as it is "bait and switch". The old folks are basically and mostly take it or leave it. Fork it into my own while taking the maintenance burden too. Sometimes they charge for it, sometimes they dont. They are just sharing something they did to the rest of the world in the hope some may enjoy it. Mostly started out as just a hobby, not something big or professional.