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Congrats to Can on the pre-seed funding. genuinely wishing you all the best. The terminal multiplexer / multi-agent coding space is getting very crowded. YC al

Congrats to Can on the pre-seed funding. genuinely wishing you all the best. The terminal multiplexer / multi-agent coding space is getting very crowded. YC alone has funded many competing startups in this space: herdr, Superset, cmux, Emdash, Orca, Bullet, Conductor (Conductor was in YC before pivoting from chat->coding). I’m probably missing a few, and that’s before counting companies outside YC such as Superlogical and Agentastic.dev (by yours truly). One thing I find particularly interesting is the role of open source in this market. A lot of these products started open source (i assume as a tactical way to gain traction and build a community). But after the early traction phase or raise funding, the incentives seem to change. Being open source by itself is not a product differentiator in this market. The features required for string positioning (orchestration, cloud, custom agents, enterprise features, hosted infrastructure, etc.) often end up either closed source or available only through the hosted product. That makes me wonder how much developers actually value OSS for this category. How much does it matter to you whether your IDE or coding environment is open source? Is OSS important because you want to inspect the code, fork it, self-host it, avoid vendor lock-in, or simply because you trust open-source developer tools more? Or, for desktop software like IDEs is open source mostly a nice-to-have rather than a requirement? So I’m curious where HN lands on this

conartist6 2mo ago
There exist also competitors not funded by YC, like me. I won't be on any of the lists because I'm not courting agents, I'm courting humans. For me OSS is a weapon to be wielded. By making perfect software that cannot be improved upon, and making known my ownership of it, I'm am defending "embrace extend extinguish" attacks that would otherwise be damaging to me. Those attacks rely on being able to undercut a product's position in the market with a similarly positioned product that can be just slightly better and/or cheaper.
sharts 2mo ago
Indeed and once the funding comes in with more chefs in the kitchen the startups start losing touch and focus on funneling users to a platform instead of just improving the core product.
giodamelio 2mo ago
It's super important to me. I use Herdr every day and I maintain a whole stack of changes. From minor comfort tweaks that are just preference, to several larger changes like add jj workspace support and a WIP web based view (powered by xterm.js). This is not the only project like this too. Many of my devtools are piling up changes. I try to upstream changes where it makes sense, but many times they are either very bespoke, or I can't be bothered to do them "right" (for example for the jj workspace change, I just ripped out git support, so I didn't have to futz with syncing the symantics up between the two and config and whatnot). LLMs have made making personal changes to devtools so effortless that I am now extremely hesitant to use any non source available software at all. I have been thinking about a possibly expanded market for source available software. I don't really care what the license of the software is, I'm not sharing it at all or using it commercially, so it's kinda a moot point. If someone made some amazing software and sold the source I'd definitely consider it. I know there are all sorts of practical business problems with that, but that aside I'm curious if others feel the same?
- skinfaxi 2mo ago
  > LLMs have made making personal changes to devtools so effortless that I am now extremely hesitant to use any non source available software at all This mirrors my view so totally it's crazy. If AI is ushering in the era of personal tooling, closing the harness is orthogonal to what users want.
  - vidarh 2mo ago
    I also don't think closed source is going to work for any software where you can't aggressively prevent the user from introspecting a large chunk of the software, because it's so easy to point an agent at the tool and tell it to copy the functionality you actually care about and/or wrap it.
  - NoDodgeQuestion 2mo ago
    that is not what orthogonal means
    - 2mo ago
foltik 2mo ago
I avoid closed source software because it’s often a pain to use on Linux.
miki123211 2mo ago
In practice, I suspect the entire category will be folded into Claude Code and Codex (Anthropic is already trying with Claude Agents), and that will do 80% of the job at 0% of the cost and configuration effort. External programs will still be useful for the tiny minority who wants different harnesses for different projects, but yeah, tiny minority.
- ahmadyan 2mo ago
  in my experience, tools usually have a longer shelf-life than models/labs. e.g. terminals and IDEs have been around for much longer, and people tend to stick around with their preferred IDEs for much longer (years/decades). One bad cycle and the next Opus 6 or GPT 7 might flop (think what happend to LLama4 or Gemini), and the user quickly switch to the next best thing. So it make sense to build your tooling to be model-agnostic.
- killix 2mo ago
  [dead]
2001zhaozhao 2mo ago
In the case of my WIP Agent IDE, OSS is mandatory because the tool needs to be able to read its own source to improve itself.
calvinmorrison 2mo ago
frankly with the level of complexity of IDEs, I just need a working product. In my mind it is closer to "photoshop" now than vim. I would probably pay for VSCode. I can't believe its free.
- ahmadyan 2mo ago
  well, visual studio isn't free. Code is free, and at some point it got so good that folks didn't feel the need to pay for the main suite.
  - calvinmorrison 2mo ago
    well thats on point for microsoft branding
devin 2mo ago
They will all fail unless they’re acquired, which is its own kind of failure.
bgnm2000 2mo ago
I’m the founder of scape.work - and it’s precisely why we’re not free, not open source. I want to build something with a mission of helping people own their infrastructure around AI tooling locally. If I raise money I am legally bound to my shareholders to create value, as opposed to my customers and my mission. Bootstrapping has never made more sense, when code is so cheap.
- jeffyaw 2mo ago
  completely agree! not interested in getting funding at all. thought about it and kept remembering that scene from Silicon Valley, “Nobody told me I could take less!”
devmor 2mo ago
For me, Open Source is extremely important because the tools are rapidly changing, and for reasons unrelated to my productivity. I use Copilot CLI at work, but now have a daemon that monitors it for updates and monkeypatches in my own custom hook framework. This came about after 3 separate incidents where I went to use the harness and found it now provided a degraded experience because Microsoft unanimously decided to change some part of it without my consent. I am a staunch believer that the most important thing a tool can do, other than its job, is provide a static experience until the user opts to change it. I use AI like a tool, because it is. I need it to behave the way I expect, or it's not actually useful to me.
dbbk 2mo ago
There is no business model here. This is a terrible outcome.
athrowaway3z 2mo ago
> Is OSS important because you want to inspect the code, fork it, self-host it, avoid vendor lock-in, or simply because you trust open-source developer tools more? Or, for desktop software like IDEs is open source mostly a nice-to-have rather than a requirement? So I’m curious where HN lands on this I frankly do not understand the question, and it reads like one you'd find in a survey written by somebody who does not understand the question themselves. I do not need to preach to the choir, so I will use an awkward analogy for the people treating this like a survey: OSS is like cash, and closed source is investing in PE (and in this case historically very underwhelming returns). Cash gives opportunity in every dimension you mention, including the option to jump into a PE. There is no need to worry or monitor its value beyond depreciation. OSS provides me every opportunity I want, at no recurring overhead costs, and only drawing on my attention when I want it. Beyond that: buying into an ecosystem has a network-effect value, and the ability for any 1 person to add value to the ecosystem is dependent by how easy it is to add value to it - and here OSS has some natural pros. But i do not think these things matter. These are considerations for people looking to build near the edge of whats possible, and those are a niche. If you're looking for what you can sell, for any problem there are several orders of magnitude more people that dont know whats already possible and just want things made 'easy'.
Aeolun 2mo ago
It doesn’t matter to me because all the stuff I use now is open source built by me. Whether or not it goes closed source is entirely up to me. I am however quite annoyed by these “open source until it gets popular enough” schemes. But then again, it’s never happened to me.
hluska 2mo ago
> Is OSS important because you want to inspect the code, fork it, self-host it, avoid vendor lock-in, or simply because you trust open-source developer tools more? Or, for desktop software like IDEs is open source mostly a nice-to-have rather than a requirement? So I’m curious where HN lands on this Are you doing a survey for customer discovery purposes? This sure sounds like it… but if you are why not just disclose that and be open about it? I don’t like the ethical leap that you made to do this. Why should I trust your product if you don’t care enough to tell the truth about your questions?

conartist6 2mo ago

There exist also competitors not funded by YC, like me. I won't be on any of the lists because I'm not courting agents, I'm courting humans. For me OSS is a weapon to be wielded. By making perfect software that cannot be improved upon, and making known my ownership of it, I'm am defending "embrace extend extinguish" attacks that would otherwise be damaging to me. Those attacks rely on being able to undercut a product's position in the market with a similarly positioned product that can be just slightly better and/or cheaper.

sharts 2mo ago

Indeed and once the funding comes in with more chefs in the kitchen the startups start losing touch and focus on funneling users to a platform instead of just improving the core product.

giodamelio 2mo ago

It's super important to me. I use Herdr every day and I maintain a whole stack of changes. From minor comfort tweaks that are just preference, to several larger changes like add jj workspace support and a WIP web based view (powered by xterm.js). This is not the only project like this too. Many of my devtools are piling up changes. I try to upstream changes where it makes sense, but many times they are either very bespoke, or I can't be bothered to do them "right" (for example for the jj workspace change, I just ripped out git support, so I didn't have to futz with syncing the symantics up between the two and config and whatnot). LLMs have made making personal changes to devtools so effortless that I am now extremely hesitant to use any non source available software at all. I have been thinking about a possibly expanded market for source available software. I don't really care what the license of the software is, I'm not sharing it at all or using it commercially, so it's kinda a moot point. If someone made some amazing software and sold the source I'd definitely consider it. I know there are all sorts of practical business problems with that, but that aside I'm curious if others feel the same?

skinfaxi 2mo ago
> LLMs have made making personal changes to devtools so effortless that I am now extremely hesitant to use any non source available software at all This mirrors my view so totally it's crazy. If AI is ushering in the era of personal tooling, closing the harness is orthogonal to what users want.
- vidarh 2mo ago
  I also don't think closed source is going to work for any software where you can't aggressively prevent the user from introspecting a large chunk of the software, because it's so easy to point an agent at the tool and tell it to copy the functionality you actually care about and/or wrap it.
- NoDodgeQuestion 2mo ago
  that is not what orthogonal means
  - 2mo ago

foltik 2mo ago

I avoid closed source software because it’s often a pain to use on Linux.

miki123211 2mo ago

In practice, I suspect the entire category will be folded into Claude Code and Codex (Anthropic is already trying with Claude Agents), and that will do 80% of the job at 0% of the cost and configuration effort. External programs will still be useful for the tiny minority who wants different harnesses for different projects, but yeah, tiny minority.

ahmadyan 2mo ago
in my experience, tools usually have a longer shelf-life than models/labs. e.g. terminals and IDEs have been around for much longer, and people tend to stick around with their preferred IDEs for much longer (years/decades). One bad cycle and the next Opus 6 or GPT 7 might flop (think what happend to LLama4 or Gemini), and the user quickly switch to the next best thing. So it make sense to build your tooling to be model-agnostic.
killix 2mo ago
[dead]

2001zhaozhao 2mo ago

In the case of my WIP Agent IDE, OSS is mandatory because the tool needs to be able to read its own source to improve itself.

calvinmorrison 2mo ago

frankly with the level of complexity of IDEs, I just need a working product. In my mind it is closer to "photoshop" now than vim. I would probably pay for VSCode. I can't believe its free.

ahmadyan 2mo ago
well, visual studio isn't free. Code is free, and at some point it got so good that folks didn't feel the need to pay for the main suite.
- calvinmorrison 2mo ago
  well thats on point for microsoft branding

devin 2mo ago

They will all fail unless they’re acquired, which is its own kind of failure.

bgnm2000 2mo ago

I’m the founder of scape.work - and it’s precisely why we’re not free, not open source. I want to build something with a mission of helping people own their infrastructure around AI tooling locally. If I raise money I am legally bound to my shareholders to create value, as opposed to my customers and my mission. Bootstrapping has never made more sense, when code is so cheap.

jeffyaw 2mo ago
completely agree! not interested in getting funding at all. thought about it and kept remembering that scene from Silicon Valley, “Nobody told me I could take less!”

devmor 2mo ago

For me, Open Source is extremely important because the tools are rapidly changing, and for reasons unrelated to my productivity. I use Copilot CLI at work, but now have a daemon that monitors it for updates and monkeypatches in my own custom hook framework. This came about after 3 separate incidents where I went to use the harness and found it now provided a degraded experience because Microsoft unanimously decided to change some part of it without my consent. I am a staunch believer that the most important thing a tool can do, other than its job, is provide a static experience until the user opts to change it. I use AI like a tool, because it is. I need it to behave the way I expect, or it's not actually useful to me.

dbbk 2mo ago

There is no business model here. This is a terrible outcome.

athrowaway3z 2mo ago

> Is OSS important because you want to inspect the code, fork it, self-host it, avoid vendor lock-in, or simply because you trust open-source developer tools more? Or, for desktop software like IDEs is open source mostly a nice-to-have rather than a requirement? So I’m curious where HN lands on this I frankly do not understand the question, and it reads like one you'd find in a survey written by somebody who does not understand the question themselves. I do not need to preach to the choir, so I will use an awkward analogy for the people treating this like a survey: OSS is like cash, and closed source is investing in PE (and in this case historically very underwhelming returns). Cash gives opportunity in every dimension you mention, including the option to jump into a PE. There is no need to worry or monitor its value beyond depreciation. OSS provides me every opportunity I want, at no recurring overhead costs, and only drawing on my attention when I want it. Beyond that: buying into an ecosystem has a network-effect value, and the ability for any 1 person to add value to the ecosystem is dependent by how easy it is to add value to it - and here OSS has some natural pros. But i do not think these things matter. These are considerations for people looking to build near the edge of whats possible, and those are a niche. If you're looking for what you can sell, for any problem there are several orders of magnitude more people that dont know whats already possible and just want things made 'easy'.

Aeolun 2mo ago

It doesn’t matter to me because all the stuff I use now is open source built by me. Whether or not it goes closed source is entirely up to me. I am however quite annoyed by these “open source until it gets popular enough” schemes. But then again, it’s never happened to me.

hluska 2mo ago