Comment by aspenmayer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aspenmayer | Hacker News Reader

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I'm not sure what they meant, but Tailscale links to Headscale and says this:

> Headscale is an open source alternative to the Tailscale coordination server and can be self-hosted for a single tailnet. Headscale is a re-implemented version of the Tailscale coordination server, developed independently and completely separate from Tailscale. Headscale is a project that complements Tailscale — with its own independent community of users and developers. Tailscale does not set Headscale’s product direction or manage the community, and neither prohibits nor requires employees from contributing to Headscale.

> Our opinion is that Headscale provides a valuable complement to Tailscale: It helps personal users better understand both how Tailscale works and how to run a coordination server at home. As such, Tailscale works with Headscale maintainers when making changes to Tailscale clients that might affect how the Headscale coordination server works, to ensure ongoing compatibility.

https://tailscale.com/opensource#encouraging-headscale

The distilled version of this is that they let Headscale, a FOSS, use their proprietary client to connect to the Headscale server rather than Tailscale’s. They don’t need to allow this, they could easily disable that feature and have every right to, but they don’t. This makes the development of Headscale a lot more straightforward since the entire client codebase is just removed from the equation.

The tailscale client is not proprietary.

The GUIs for Windows, macOS, and iOS/iPadOS are proprietary.

GP phrased it a confusing way around imo - proprietary or not, they don't need to give the client the capability to target a non-Tailscale server!

An excellent way to position yourself towards an open source alternative. Everything they do seems to be grounded in an engineering mindset and with respect to users.

What are some other companies like that?

The ones that have an MBA-driven anti-user mindset IMO:

    Apple, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, Adobe, Nvidia, AMD

I think they've figured out a way to align their interests with what's truly good for their users. I'm sure a lot of their sales funnel is just nerds like us using Tailscale at home, and then bringing it to their employers.

We're really happy Tailscale users at home. No bullshit, just works.

> I think they've figured out a way to align their interests with what's truly good for their users. I'm sure a lot of their sales funnel is just nerds like us using Tailscale at home, and then bringing it to their employers.

I can't say for certain (I do not work for TailScale, nor have I ever) but I suspect you are right.

TailScale was _immediately_ surfaced in our team's "what could we replace open-vpn with?" conversation recently... precisely because most of us _are_ using it at home and have nothing but praise.

  > I'm sure a lot of their sales funnel is just nerds like us using Tailscale at home, and then bringing it to their employers.

100% this. GitHub and WandB also seem to follow this strategy.

Honestly, I don't know why this stopped being the dominant strategy. Matlab, Adobe, Solidworks, and many other tools used to be free for students. It's not hard to see how people working with certain software while in school translates to using that same software outside. The same is true for at home! You get frustrated with whatever BS thing your work has and then ask your boss if you can use X instead.

I think it stopped because they got too big. Becoming the de facto tool they figured they could charge students and hobbiests too. I'm pretty sure this just lead to more piracy and open source solutions. I mean Coca-Cola still advertises... they sure aren't doing it for brand recognition... everyone knows who they are (same with McDonalds!). They do it to associate feelings. These companies should still do those student and hobbiest versions for the same reasons. It prevents others from displacing you. Companies aren't going to complain about the price and pirate your stuff instead, they have the money. Only hobbiests and students do that stuff...

There is one problem... I've seen employees at certain places use personal accounts for business work. Worse, I've seen them do this despite the business already having seats! I don't know why this is going on, but maybe we should do a bit of peer pressure if we want to ensure we keep those free hobbiest licenses. Plus, it puts your business in a legally dubious area. Not likely to get sued, but it sure isn't legal...

I think it's still a dominant strategy. Docker functions on the same ideology. VMWare switched to the same strategy with their Workstation Pro being free for non-commercial use, etc.

Agreed on the licensing concerns. I hate seeing members of commercial entities discuss using personal/non-commercial products like that. I moved to a new company and wanted to use Obsidian for some individual note-taking purposes, then realized I could only use it for 30 days before I needed a commercial license if I did anything work related with it. I know Obsidian proper wouldn't even know if I used it this way, but I avoided doing so until I got word that Obsidian was changing their commercial licensing policy.

I think that you would've lose those users anyway, so at least leave a good impression on them as they can become advocate when they're in another context where Tailscale is the better solution.

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