I may be mistaken here, but I think we will see pure functionality become less important to enterprise customers, which might (maybe not, but one can hope) proper open source business models more viable again.
24 karma · joined July 12, 2019
I may be mistaken here, but I think we will see pure functionality become less important to enterprise customers, which might (maybe not, but one can hope) proper open source business models more viable again.
With the AGPL that would require dual licensing, and that draws flak as well.
I think the notion that OSS means there cannot be any money involved simply cannot hold true anymore these days. Software has become extremely complex and requires dedicated developers working on it - and they need to eat.
We are currently seeing a lot of companies changing their licensing model for a reason - because there is not currently a middle ground between OSS and a working business modell that the OSS crowd doesn't hate.
That being said, I'd love to be proven wrong here!
As I said, I'm explicitly not mentioning any alternative here because they all have issues, but the AGPL's wording is much more complicated than most and that (perceived) insecurity around it is my main criticism.
I'm not sure I agree. Yes, standardization is a good thing and AGPL is the "known evil", but having read it I do think that it is a very very complex piece of text - personally I'd go so far as to say that it is close to incomprehensible and would prefer pretty much anything else.
But even aside from that the sheer number of companies that point blank ban AGPL licensed software from being used in their stack could be used as an indicator as well. Though this may be due to the common misunderstanding that it is a viral license, which just goes back to my prior point on it not being clearly worded.
I won't even mention alternatives, I'm sure they all have issues, it is a complex topic, but if it were up to me the AGPL would not be my first license choice.
Looking at what "as a service" providers of open source software do though, that is taking it a step further, since they wrap the software in a layer that _smoothes_ out changes for the user. Going back to the rental company that would equate to the car manufacturer deciding the indicator needs to be on the right side of the steering wheel now and the rental company installing an adaptor so that it remains on the left for you, to keep the look and feel for the user the same.
Not a perfect comparison, but they never are :)
That issue is not endemic to Kubernetes, but rather to any larger system past a certain age, you learn stuff as you go along and would do stuff differently if you did it again today - but you can't easily, because you cannot break compatibility for everybody using your stuff.
As a concrete example from the Kubernetes world, there is a talk by Tim Hockin [1] about how today, they would fundamentally design the api-server differently and base pretty much everything on CRDs.
As for using a navigation layer - perfectly happy with that 90% of the time, I already use that today, but for some things I just prefer actual cursor keys. For example selecting an entire word in an editor, you press shift to select, ctrl to jump a whole word and cursor for the direction to jump in. If you add a modifier to that, you start breaking fingers ..
[1] https://configure.ergodox-ez.com/moonlander/layouts/60ynN/la...
I mostly learned the layout to reduce stress on my hands due to the more ergonomic placement of each letter.
From all the other layers I only use the cursor keys and L3 for []{}<>() and stuff like that, which are much easier to reach and I use a lot when programming.
I'm not saying it wouldn't work, but for me being from Germany the keyboard is even more expensive than it is anyway and I'm not sure I'm willing to pay that much for the hope that I can adjust to it.
[1] https://configure.ergodox-ez.com/moonlander/layouts/mzD9d/la...
[2] https://configure.ergodox-ez.com/moonlander/layouts/60ynN/la...
[3] https://configure.ergodox-ez.com/moonlander/layouts/jXjMx/la...
Has that bothered you at all, or did you find a layout that works for you and keeps the cursor keys?
I have personally switched to a tiling window manager that allows me to do much with the keyboard, added the surfingkeys plugin to chrome to allow the same when browsing and switched to using the neo2 keyboard layout (this is for Germans, Dvorak or something similar might be better for you).
The combination of these factors has massively improved how much I need to reach for the mouse throughout the day.
Due to the market share of AWS for many potential customers it will come down to a decision between
a) click here in the aws marketplace and have my service added to the invoice my company gets every month anyway
b) start the painful process of onboarding a new vendor, get a quote, have procurement haggle with them for months etc etc etc. (overstating it a bit, I know)
And that is where to me it becomes a question of using/abusing your position in the market to a certain extent..
I'd not consider that actively developing a product and adding new features.