Bump and Flock discontinued
blog.bu.mp
blog.bu.mp
http://blog.bu.mp/post/61411611006/bump-google
"Bump and Flock will continue to work as they always have for now; stay tuned for future updates."
3 and a half months later the discontinuation announcement. In retrospect the statement "stay tuned for future updates" sounds quite sinister. The casual wording makes it sound like things will work out but in actuality it is far from the truth.
If you read any product acquisition announcement and it does not state any explicit plans to keep the product around then be fully prepared that it will be shut down.
I'm struggling for some kind of reference to Microsoft's "embrace, extend, extinguish," but it's not really the same thing.
But, if all acquihires are like this than that word should be enough, methinks.
I have shifted to using open source products and installing them on my own servers wherever possible.
And this is what big guys want to as well, they want to discourage users to put trust with small guys. perhaps I am wrong, but it's kindda apparent.
As far as I can tell, the "we're out of money and are shutting down" has become "we got acqui-hired and are shutting down". Same result for the users.
Probably not, but the model has shifted and there's a greater offering of services nowadays. Given the choice available and all the niches covered, it's very easy to start using one of them and coming to rely on it for some facet of your life/work, only to have it shut down with little prior notice and leaving you out to dry.
The parent's point is that if you use locally running software without any dependencies on external services you're much more secure in the event you need to migrate away from them, since you can do it at your own pace and with much more control over the entire process. Also, if you're using FOSS, it makes it less likely the support will just cease since, if there's enough interest, someone else (even you) can carry it forward.
I only wish there was a way to incentivize people away from the "get acquihired and shut down" model. In this cloud reality we (the users) are repeatedly being led to depend on services that subsequently get shut down at random (with all the nice messages from CEOs that basically say "fuck you and thanks for all the fish"), and we have no way of fighting back.
That's one of the main reasons I hate the SaaS trend and wish it to die in a fire.