5 ms·

The solution I've come up with is a pledge to release the source code if the product dies.[1] We've done this at Floobits, and it makes our users' lives less st

by ggreer 12y ago

The solution I've come up with is a pledge to release the source code if the product dies.[1] We've done this at Floobits, and it makes our users' lives less stressful.[2] 1. http://geoff.greer.fm/2012/09/19/a-responsible-product-sunset-pledge/ http://geoff.greer.fm/2012/09/19/a-responsible-product-sunse... 2. https://floobits.com/pledge https://floobits.com/pledge

baddox 12y ago
What good is a pledge? Once the product dies, there's presumably little incentive to abide by it.
- ggreer 12y ago
  Little incentive? Even assuming sociopathic tendencies, it doesn't make sense to renege on the pledge and be branded a money-grubbing liar. The internet has a long memory, and people would not trust you in the future.
  - baddox 12y ago
    > Even assuming sociopathic tendencies, it doesn't make sense to renege on the pledge and be branded a money-grubbing liar. But that's just the same incentive for a company to continue providing the same level of service after being acquired.
  - sliverstorm 12y ago
    How about the pain-in-the-butt that is organizing, packaging, and releasing an organic network & development environment when you have other bigger things on your plate? I'm sure there are a few companies here and there with everything already nicely packaged. Yet, most places I've worked, it would be a herculean effort to pull the tangled jungle that is the internal network & development environment into one halfway-functional package. It's less than ideal, but it is usually extremely low on the list of priorities as well as virtually untestable, unless the business model involves a large number of functionally identical VLAN's. Also, names of people are usually not very strongly attached to products.
    - seanflyon 12y ago
      Who said anything about organizing or packaging? Just put the code up on Github with a reasonable license and walk away. Running and maintaining is of course still a problem, but you can hardly expect a company that is out of business to do that.
      - danielweber 12y ago
        "Just put the code up" isn't always that easy.
      - ufmace 12y ago
        You may have the code, but there might still be a huge pile of problems. Such as: How many application variables are hard-coded to your company's specific network and server configuration? Have you fully documented the configuration of every related server, checked that in, and kept it up to date? Are the required versions of every dependency well documented? Does it use any third-party packages that you have modified, but never checked into your source control? Is any part of it dependent on some massively expensive piece of software or data set that you happen to have easy access to for some reason?
        seanflyon 12y ago
        I completely agree that open sourcing the project does not guarantee that the project will continue to function. I also think that after a company goes out of business they have no responsibility to keep their project functioning. Once they open source it, anyone is free to put in the work to keep it going and I can't think of a better guarantee a company could reasonably give.
  - dhimes 12y ago
    Not to be a dick, but "One thing we do want to make clear: Svpply is not going away. We’ll continue to bring our users new products each day" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7939934 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7939934 And as dotBen posted, from their blog: "One thing we do want to make clear: Svpply is not going away. We’ll continue to bring our users new products each day" And if you follow the comments you'll see that some believe that these promises aren't even meant to be long term. So, simply, we would be stupid to bank on it. Congratulations to the team, though! It shows a great and determined effort, something I greatly admire. And hopefully a means of maintaining trust will emerge.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- loumf 12y ago
  I have worked at startups that people could believe would fail. We used source code escrow services that release the code to customers if we went out of business. Any of them would have been free to open-source.
  - bigtunacan 12y ago
    Up-voted and seconding. I have worked at startups that have done the same thing. I think this is not an uncommon practice.
  - btown 12y ago
    Any recommendations as to reputable code escrow services? I'd imagine there are some misbehaving players out there.
    - loumf 12y ago
      Never heard of a bad actor. I think you just choose a law firm, insurance company, big 4 accounting firm. That sort of company. They just need to safeguard the code drops and execute the transfer at the proper time. Like reading a will.
- stonemetal 12y ago
  In general it could be taken as a legally binding statement so if they are bought out and shut down there would be an avenue to pursue with the new owners. The couple of small companies that I have worked for that had such a pledge took it seriously. They would hand source for every release over to an escrow company ensuring availability after company death.
  - baddox 12y ago
    Yes, the legal route sounds at least plausible. I don't know if there's any precedent or how reliable such a contract could be made.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - james_in_the_uk 12y ago
      It's not plausible because insolvent / bankrupt companies have the option to walk away from onerous contracts if it is in the interests of the debtors not to honour them. In this case, the idea of open sourcing the software UPON bankrupcy could destroy any remaining value left in the business (value of IP) which would otherwise be realisable to distribute to debtors.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
grinich 12y ago
Why not just open source it from the beginning? :) https://github.com/inboxapp/inbox/blob/master/LICENSE https://github.com/inboxapp/inbox/blob/master/LICENSE
- wlesieutre 12y ago
  I know some folks at Basho where they do just that with Riak, a high-availability distributed database. It's not an unworkable strategy, and clients know the product's not going to vanish out from under them. https://github.com/basho https://github.com/basho
jamesisaac 12y ago
Nice to see someone else viewing pledges as a potential solution. Something I think would make this even better, is if the pledges were standardised, so they followed some mutually agreeable guidelines. I had a go at doing this here: https://github.com/jamesisaac/pledges https://github.com/jamesisaac/pledges I have it in place on my app (https://nachapp.com https://nachapp.com), and plan it include some/all of the pledges on future products I launch. Haven't yet come in contact with any other founders who are up for including it on their product... but if you like the idea and want to help improve the draft (even if it's just for the "long-term service" pledge), feel free to get in touch.
venomsnake 12y ago
I prefer something enforceable in court.
otterley 12y ago
Putting the source in escrow is a much better -- and more enforceable -- option than a mere pledge. This places the ability to release into the hands of a third party who is obligated to do so in the event that the conditions are met.

by ggreer 12y ago

baddox 12y ago

What good is a pledge? Once the product dies, there's presumably little incentive to abide by it.

ggreer 12y ago
Little incentive? Even assuming sociopathic tendencies, it doesn't make sense to renege on the pledge and be branded a money-grubbing liar. The internet has a long memory, and people would not trust you in the future.
- baddox 12y ago
  > Even assuming sociopathic tendencies, it doesn't make sense to renege on the pledge and be branded a money-grubbing liar. But that's just the same incentive for a company to continue providing the same level of service after being acquired.
- sliverstorm 12y ago
  How about the pain-in-the-butt that is organizing, packaging, and releasing an organic network & development environment when you have other bigger things on your plate? I'm sure there are a few companies here and there with everything already nicely packaged. Yet, most places I've worked, it would be a herculean effort to pull the tangled jungle that is the internal network & development environment into one halfway-functional package. It's less than ideal, but it is usually extremely low on the list of priorities as well as virtually untestable, unless the business model involves a large number of functionally identical VLAN's. Also, names of people are usually not very strongly attached to products.
  - seanflyon 12y ago
    Who said anything about organizing or packaging? Just put the code up on Github with a reasonable license and walk away. Running and maintaining is of course still a problem, but you can hardly expect a company that is out of business to do that.
    - danielweber 12y ago
      "Just put the code up" isn't always that easy.
    - ufmace 12y ago
      You may have the code, but there might still be a huge pile of problems. Such as: How many application variables are hard-coded to your company's specific network and server configuration? Have you fully documented the configuration of every related server, checked that in, and kept it up to date? Are the required versions of every dependency well documented? Does it use any third-party packages that you have modified, but never checked into your source control? Is any part of it dependent on some massively expensive piece of software or data set that you happen to have easy access to for some reason?
      - seanflyon 12y ago
        I completely agree that open sourcing the project does not guarantee that the project will continue to function. I also think that after a company goes out of business they have no responsibility to keep their project functioning. Once they open source it, anyone is free to put in the work to keep it going and I can't think of a better guarantee a company could reasonably give.
- dhimes 12y ago
  Not to be a dick, but "One thing we do want to make clear: Svpply is not going away. We’ll continue to bring our users new products each day" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7939934 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7939934 And as dotBen posted, from their blog: "One thing we do want to make clear: Svpply is not going away. We’ll continue to bring our users new products each day" And if you follow the comments you'll see that some believe that these promises aren't even meant to be long term. So, simply, we would be stupid to bank on it. Congratulations to the team, though! It shows a great and determined effort, something I greatly admire. And hopefully a means of maintaining trust will emerge.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
loumf 12y ago
I have worked at startups that people could believe would fail. We used source code escrow services that release the code to customers if we went out of business. Any of them would have been free to open-source.
- bigtunacan 12y ago
  Up-voted and seconding. I have worked at startups that have done the same thing. I think this is not an uncommon practice.
- btown 12y ago
  Any recommendations as to reputable code escrow services? I'd imagine there are some misbehaving players out there.
  - loumf 12y ago
    Never heard of a bad actor. I think you just choose a law firm, insurance company, big 4 accounting firm. That sort of company. They just need to safeguard the code drops and execute the transfer at the proper time. Like reading a will.
stonemetal 12y ago
In general it could be taken as a legally binding statement so if they are bought out and shut down there would be an avenue to pursue with the new owners. The couple of small companies that I have worked for that had such a pledge took it seriously. They would hand source for every release over to an escrow company ensuring availability after company death.
- baddox 12y ago
  Yes, the legal route sounds at least plausible. I don't know if there's any precedent or how reliable such a contract could be made.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - james_in_the_uk 12y ago
    It's not plausible because insolvent / bankrupt companies have the option to walk away from onerous contracts if it is in the interests of the debtors not to honour them. In this case, the idea of open sourcing the software UPON bankrupcy could destroy any remaining value left in the business (value of IP) which would otherwise be realisable to distribute to debtors.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]

grinich 12y ago

Why not just open source it from the beginning? :) https://github.com/inboxapp/inbox/blob/master/LICENSE https://github.com/inboxapp/inbox/blob/master/LICENSE

wlesieutre 12y ago
I know some folks at Basho where they do just that with Riak, a high-availability distributed database. It's not an unworkable strategy, and clients know the product's not going to vanish out from under them. https://github.com/basho https://github.com/basho

jamesisaac 12y ago

Nice to see someone else viewing pledges as a potential solution. Something I think would make this even better, is if the pledges were standardised, so they followed some mutually agreeable guidelines. I had a go at doing this here: https://github.com/jamesisaac/pledges https://github.com/jamesisaac/pledges I have it in place on my app (https://nachapp.com https://nachapp.com), and plan it include some/all of the pledges on future products I launch. Haven't yet come in contact with any other founders who are up for including it on their product... but if you like the idea and want to help improve the draft (even if it's just for the "long-term service" pledge), feel free to get in touch.

venomsnake 12y ago

I prefer something enforceable in court.

otterley 12y ago

Putting the source in escrow is a much better -- and more enforceable -- option than a mere pledge. This places the ability to release into the hands of a third party who is obligated to do so in the event that the conditions are met.