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Comment by kazinator | Hacker News Reader

Open source isn't eating all proprietary software.

Open source is enabling proprietary software to be more profitable, because it makes free all the commodity pieces that are needed to make proprietary software work.

Customers would otherwise have to pay for these things (in an ongoing manner) leaving less of their $$$ to spend on your payload.

Open source powers SaaS which is so closed and proprietary that the user doesn't even get to execute the binary code on their own hardware.

Of course, if your business is selling operating systems, development tools, databases and other infrastructure stuff, then, yup, open source has eaten your business.

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> Of course, if your business is selling operating systems, development tools, databases and other infrastructure stuff, then, yup, open source has eaten your business.

I agree with what you said. With the caveat that some lucky few companies do seem to do well in this space too. Recently learned JetBrains (makers of IntelliJ) had $270M revenue/year and $100M net income in 2018.

It shouldn't be surprising that JetBrains is doing well.

Even with sectors like developer tools, there is a lot of room for creating value-added solutions that are proprietary, and that customers will happily pay good money for.

I think it is surprising, especially considering the free open source options available that are not far behind intellij offerings like VS code.

Even they produce community editions of their software to drive up engagement.

In 1990s, you turned a blind eye to small-time piracy to get engagement. Now you can offer a much better deal.

JetBrains is in a unique position, they came from a time when closed IDEs were accepted. I doubt they could enter the market with the same business model today.

> operating systems

The desktop OS market has basically two players: Windows and Mac OS. Desktop Linux is so small it's no relevant force at all.

> development tools

What about the intellij tools? They cost quite a large amount, and it's a monthly cost. MS Visual Studio is still around as well.

> databases

SAP is still a major force on the German market. The company behind it is amongst the 30 biggest public German companies.

Intellij only succeeds due to open source community editions.

You are picking out exceptions. The parent didn't say it's not possible to make money in these spaces, just that OSS is eating it up. And desktop operating systems are in the small minority of all operating systems in use today.

> Of course, if your business is selling operating systems, development tools, databases and other infrastructure stuff, then, yup, open source has eaten your business.

It seems like the rule is that open source is eating all-except-niche software.

So you’re saying everything except “operating systems, development tools, databases and other infrastructure stuff” is “niche software”? I’m not following, e.g., that would make Google and Facebook niche software?

They are extremely niche in a sense. There are very few other search engines (all much smaller), and there's no another Facebook.

The market just naturally gravitates to the biggest player.

What's the definition of niche being used here? I'd define it as software that's only relevant to a small percentage of the population (i.e., that obviously wouldn't include Facebook and Google).

It does include Facebook and Google, because Facebook and Google do not make up a large proportion of the population.

"extremely focused?"

It forces you to make products instead of tools. Putting tools behind a paywall is wack.

Most software can be classified as a tool, except e.g. games.

I think he means tools for making software not business tools

Open source is enabling large corporations to establish monopolies.

Open source powers google and amazon yet the authors get little return from it.

Open source has killed indie development.

And we all get a better product because of it, moving the ship of humanity a little bit further along.

And a little less freedom, and a little more 9 to 5, moving software engineers into bricklayer positions a little more each day.

I'd rather chase making the next big thing than the next big hammer.

A better gas chamber is not something to be proud of.

And facebook has already been used for genocide: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo...

I don't think that getting stronger amazon market position "moves the ship of humanity further along", it's probably regressive if anything.

> Open source is enabling large corporations to establish monopolies. > Open source powers google and amazon yet the authors get little return from it.

A different license could fix that but that goes against the philosophy; it would fix it though. People are trying that and a lot of other people are dead against it for good reasons, but how else can it be fixed?

Even if you don't make it viral towards revenue, then GPL works the best imho; at least the big corps must give back when they make changes. The problem is that many use non viral licenses and then it's just free for all. I personally do that as well at times, but it does what you say.

> Open source has killed indie development.

In what way? I don't understand the remark.

>> Open source has killed indie development.

> In what way? I don't understand the remark.

Open source has reduced scarcity by such a high degree that writing quality code is valued next to nothing in monetary terms. Also, communities around closed source software have better ways to monetize, since there is usually no expectation from clients to get it for free as is from clients who are oss centric. Sure one can get the "opportunity" to work at FAANG just like their forefathers had the opportunity to work at Ford, Chrysler and other googles and amazons of the last generation, but that is not freedom. In other words, OSS reduced scarcity, shifted the balance towards a few centralised software powerhouses and has forced the vast majority of great engineers into 9 to 5 jobs.

EDIT: I am hugely in favor of open source as a means to share knowledge, but i am not in favor of OSS as free code for companies to monetise. Companies are entities that generate revenue, and for them, our effort to better the world is just a reduced investment cost, and nothing more.

> yet the authors get little return from it.

This is a big assumption. How many open source developers do so for altruistic reasons? How many open source developers are funded by companies looking for good will.

There’s a simplistic view that developers only want money and that if they don’t get rich, that’s bad. That may be true for some, but those people would need to be stupid to desire wealth from software and still make lots of contributions to open source projects.

There are many benefits other than just payment.

I’ll also add that open source is really diverse and there are many companies profitable and happy chugging along or getting bought out (red hat, canonical, jetbrains, etc etc).

If people want to get wealthy fro software there are many companies doing so. Either through selling licenses (Microsoft) or just making secret sauce that doesn’t get sold (google, Amazon, Wall Street).

I would agree with you if there was no path to riches or there was some weird open source draft that forces people to code without pay.

But as it is now, developers can choose, and do, to donate their time and brainpower writing free/libre software.

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