10 ms·

Not to take away from Docker's achievements (seriously, well done), but it's a funny world we live in, Docker gets 15M (or "another startup casually gets $XXM),

by galenko 13y ago

Not to take away from Docker's achievements (seriously, well done), but it's a funny world we live in, Docker gets 15M (or "another startup casually gets $XXM), while OpenBSD foundation (which pays for stuff all of us rely on every day) have to beg for donations and 100k is a huge achievement.

bertil 13y ago
Well, 15M gives investors control, and (even out over several investments) reasonable likelihood of profit. But, then again, you point out a great idea: to somehow tie large investments and open source projets. I'm not sure entrepreneurs who struggle getting funding would want to had one more stone to their neck, but it would be great PR to have either a repeated entrepreneur, or an accelerator, lock x% of the funds they raise to donation.
- jamiequint 13y ago
  >> 15M gives investors control Without inside information you have no idea if this is true or not. It may very well not be. Facebook raised over 2 Billion prior to their IPO and never gave up control. $XXm Investment != Control.
  - nickstinemates 13y ago
    You're on the right track :)
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
epistasis 13y ago
I feel similarly. Docker's founders deserve only congratulations, they're doing a cool thing and asking for money for it. And Linux's terrible and primitive containerization technologies are finally growing up to be able to match Solaris and FreeBSD. But I don't find "funny" strong enough a word when OpenBSD, which is IMHO a far more fundamental and important technology than containerization and should be easier to monetize than Docker, is struggling to survive. I think it comes down to the personalities of the leadership, and where they want to take the projects. But it's a crying shame that OpenBSD is struggling. Not related at all to Docker, but a shame none the less.
- riffraff 13y ago
  it also comes down to profit. I can give 100k to docker and expect to get back 200k. If I give that money to OpenBSD I'm expecting a general "the world may be better" and a loss of 100k. While a nice thing, this is not what I'd want people managing my money to do.
  - epistasis 13y ago
    Who is giving up this 200k? I think that with the proper service infrastructure on top of their open source development model, OpenBSD could also bring in 200k on a 100k investment. But OpenBSD would have to be pushed and marketed as Docker has been, and the service side organized as a for-profit organization.
    - alexlarsson 13y ago
      Not 200k, but someone is giving up their $15M.
- tmp2789 13y ago
  > I think it comes down to the personalities of the leadership It's a nice way to say that OpenBSD is a failure because its Glorious Leader is a dick.
nathancahill 13y ago
Very true. Do you think we could take the Gittip model a few steps farther, and have companies use it to fund open source projects they are built on (like OpenBSD)?
- nathancahill 13y ago
  Sure, big players like Google contribute to open source projects, but I'm thinking along the lines of smaller companies pledging 50k/year because they rely heavily on ___ open source technology.
shykes 13y ago
I'm really glad you brought this up! This topic is actually very relevant to what we're trying to do with Docker. Think of it this way: we (the creators of an open-source project) have built for our project an infrastructure capable of supporting its long-term development and success without falling victim to the "openbsd effect". We hijacked for ourselves a venture-backed company and are experimenting with a symbiotic relationship where both the project and the business win without corrupting each other. We get financial, legal and marketing "artillery" in the form of a corporate structure which is dedicated to the success of the project without distorting it. We have large stakeholder (me) who is also the maintainer of the open-source project. We have a CEO (Ben Golub) with a track record of incredible success in general, of successfully managing an open-source company in particular and with a reputation of doing business in an honest and trustworthy way. We have investors with a track record of being patient, seeing the big picture and backing open-source companies and their creators in a sincere way. These guys could have fired me at any point of our transition to this model, and didn't. So, sure, we got money "casually" (I'll leave that battle for another day), and OpenBSD struggled to get basic funding. And obviously, OpenBSD and Docker are not in the same league as open-source projects (although I hope one day they will be). But, respectfully, I think this is more than "another startup gets $XXM". We are experimenting with a new model for the funding of open-source. One where the original innovators get to capture some of the value they created, fueling even more innovation in a virtuous circle of "innovation -> better product -> more money -> more innovation". To me personally, were we to succeed, that would be a welcome change from the current situation, where the initial inventors are trampled by savvier entrepreneurs, who race to the local maximum of the most profitable derivative business model with the highest barriers to entry, and proceed to not reinvest their profits in the original invention, thwarting the virtuous circle. For example, Xensource produced the open-source hypervisor and we got Amazon EC2. Linus produced Git and we got Github. I think these products are great and useful - but they are a local maximum. With the raw material of git, hypervisors and a commodity open-source operating system, we could have produced so much more aggregate wealth! At Docker we want to be both git and github. We're open-source people first, but we know how to sell a saas product and run it at scale. We know how to raise money and build a profitable business with that money. And that profit gets directly reinvested in the original innovation - Docker. And I think that's the future of open-source: if we as a community want to see less "OpenBSD episodes", we're going to have to roll up our sleeves and go about building real business value on top of our inventions. Otherwise others will, and we'll only have ourselves to blame.
lelf 13y ago
You forget to mention that BSDs have had jails for ages.
- justincormack 13y ago
  FreeBSD has, not the other BSDs.
- darkarmani 13y ago
  > You forget to mention that BSDs have had jails for ages. What do BSD jails have to do with Docker? Also, what is the adoption rate of users using jails?
nacs 13y ago
Yeah and Snapchat was offered $3 billion.. I'm not sure that I understand your point -- people place a value on things but that doesn't mean anything that makes less money is any less important.
aquadrop 13y ago
100k was a gift with no strings attached and 15M is an investment with planned profits, control etc. By the way, today's docker user base and importance isn't that small comparing to OpenBSD. At the moment there's 377 people on #openbsd channel and 715 people on #docker channel (freenode).
darkarmani 13y ago
> have to beg for donations and 100k is a huge achievement. What is the return on investment for that 100k? I don't see the disconnect as the OpenBSD doesn't have a revenue stream.

by galenko 13y ago

bertil 13y ago

Well, 15M gives investors control, and (even out over several investments) reasonable likelihood of profit. But, then again, you point out a great idea: to somehow tie large investments and open source projets. I'm not sure entrepreneurs who struggle getting funding would want to had one more stone to their neck, but it would be great PR to have either a repeated entrepreneur, or an accelerator, lock x% of the funds they raise to donation.

jamiequint 13y ago
>> 15M gives investors control Without inside information you have no idea if this is true or not. It may very well not be. Facebook raised over 2 Billion prior to their IPO and never gave up control. $XXm Investment != Control.
- nickstinemates 13y ago
  You're on the right track :)

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

epistasis 13y ago

I feel similarly. Docker's founders deserve only congratulations, they're doing a cool thing and asking for money for it. And Linux's terrible and primitive containerization technologies are finally growing up to be able to match Solaris and FreeBSD. But I don't find "funny" strong enough a word when OpenBSD, which is IMHO a far more fundamental and important technology than containerization and should be easier to monetize than Docker, is struggling to survive. I think it comes down to the personalities of the leadership, and where they want to take the projects. But it's a crying shame that OpenBSD is struggling. Not related at all to Docker, but a shame none the less.

riffraff 13y ago
it also comes down to profit. I can give 100k to docker and expect to get back 200k. If I give that money to OpenBSD I'm expecting a general "the world may be better" and a loss of 100k. While a nice thing, this is not what I'd want people managing my money to do.
- epistasis 13y ago
  Who is giving up this 200k? I think that with the proper service infrastructure on top of their open source development model, OpenBSD could also bring in 200k on a 100k investment. But OpenBSD would have to be pushed and marketed as Docker has been, and the service side organized as a for-profit organization.
  - alexlarsson 13y ago
    Not 200k, but someone is giving up their $15M.
tmp2789 13y ago
> I think it comes down to the personalities of the leadership It's a nice way to say that OpenBSD is a failure because its Glorious Leader is a dick.

nathancahill 13y ago

Very true. Do you think we could take the Gittip model a few steps farther, and have companies use it to fund open source projects they are built on (like OpenBSD)?

nathancahill 13y ago
Sure, big players like Google contribute to open source projects, but I'm thinking along the lines of smaller companies pledging 50k/year because they rely heavily on ___ open source technology.

shykes 13y ago

I'm really glad you brought this up! This topic is actually very relevant to what we're trying to do with Docker. Think of it this way: we (the creators of an open-source project) have built for our project an infrastructure capable of supporting its long-term development and success without falling victim to the "openbsd effect". We hijacked for ourselves a venture-backed company and are experimenting with a symbiotic relationship where both the project and the business win without corrupting each other. We get financial, legal and marketing "artillery" in the form of a corporate structure which is dedicated to the success of the project without distorting it. We have large stakeholder (me) who is also the maintainer of the open-source project. We have a CEO (Ben Golub) with a track record of incredible success in general, of successfully managing an open-source company in particular and with a reputation of doing business in an honest and trustworthy way. We have investors with a track record of being patient, seeing the big picture and backing open-source companies and their creators in a sincere way. These guys could have fired me at any point of our transition to this model, and didn't. So, sure, we got money "casually" (I'll leave that battle for another day), and OpenBSD struggled to get basic funding. And obviously, OpenBSD and Docker are not in the same league as open-source projects (although I hope one day they will be). But, respectfully, I think this is more than "another startup gets $XXM". We are experimenting with a new model for the funding of open-source. One where the original innovators get to capture some of the value they created, fueling even more innovation in a virtuous circle of "innovation -> better product -> more money -> more innovation". To me personally, were we to succeed, that would be a welcome change from the current situation, where the initial inventors are trampled by savvier entrepreneurs, who race to the local maximum of the most profitable derivative business model with the highest barriers to entry, and proceed to not reinvest their profits in the original invention, thwarting the virtuous circle. For example, Xensource produced the open-source hypervisor and we got Amazon EC2. Linus produced Git and we got Github. I think these products are great and useful - but they are a local maximum. With the raw material of git, hypervisors and a commodity open-source operating system, we could have produced so much more aggregate wealth! At Docker we want to be both git and github. We're open-source people first, but we know how to sell a saas product and run it at scale. We know how to raise money and build a profitable business with that money. And that profit gets directly reinvested in the original innovation - Docker. And I think that's the future of open-source: if we as a community want to see less "OpenBSD episodes", we're going to have to roll up our sleeves and go about building real business value on top of our inventions. Otherwise others will, and we'll only have ourselves to blame.

lelf 13y ago

You forget to mention that BSDs have had jails for ages.

justincormack 13y ago
FreeBSD has, not the other BSDs.
darkarmani 13y ago
> You forget to mention that BSDs have had jails for ages. What do BSD jails have to do with Docker? Also, what is the adoption rate of users using jails?

nacs 13y ago

Yeah and Snapchat was offered $3 billion.. I'm not sure that I understand your point -- people place a value on things but that doesn't mean anything that makes less money is any less important.

aquadrop 13y ago

100k was a gift with no strings attached and 15M is an investment with planned profits, control etc. By the way, today's docker user base and importance isn't that small comparing to OpenBSD. At the moment there's 377 people on #openbsd channel and 715 people on #docker channel (freenode).

darkarmani 13y ago

> have to beg for donations and 100k is a huge achievement. What is the return on investment for that 100k? I don't see the disconnect as the OpenBSD doesn't have a revenue stream.