Comment by tedivm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tedivm | Hacker News Reader

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I asked the same questions on Twitter. One of the cofounders had a meltdown over the questions, and the other founder actually hopped on a phone call with me to discuss their plans.

As far as I can tell the open source version (which hasn't had any updates other than readme changes since earlier this year) is basically on life support. They have no plans to make the new hosted version open source, and only vague plans on hire a contractor in the future to keep the open source version alive. According to the cofounder I spoke with they went back and force about this half a dozen times, which is why their messaging has been so mixed- they had originally said in previous HN and twitter threads that they would open source the new version, but went back on that because they were worried it would take money from their hosted version.

Pretty much bang on. The only piece I'd point out is that Paul didn't have a meltdown, he thought you were a troll.

We're looking to make the business sustainable so that we are in this for the long run. Without money, we couldn't spend the same amount of time on it that we are.

And we were definitely bad on the messaging and are going to be more careful in the future as it does cause upset.

I asked about the open source version, and then made a tweet about how you had changed your mind (which you've admitted to here, and on our phone call). Your cofounder showed up, accused me of lying, and then blocked me before I could respond with screenshots of your company previously committing to open sourcing the new version.

If anyone was a troll in that situation it wasn't me ;-)

You're not a troll, we thought you were. We were very wrong. You were the complete opposite and wanted to help.

Paul has publicly admitted that he was wrong on the podcast. It is funny in hindsight. He denied that we said we would OS it then I reminded him that he made the graphic announcing it!

Big mistakes made on the messaging of this and lessons have been learned.

Glad I could be helpful! If you ever decide to open source the new version feel free to reach out if you'd like an advisor (or even just someone to bounce ideas off of). Open Source Sustainability is a huge issue for me, and I'm always happy to help open source companies.

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