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I find it brave we had this generation of companies creating open-source business models.

It’s a shame it didn’t work out for them due to bad actors.

The trend I see is for the next generation of good open-source great ideas to be much more protective around their intellectual property. Such a loss, again, due to bad actors.



I don't think the loss is due to bad actors. These actors aren't bad, they're rational. I think the loss is due to giving away things unconditionally without thinking about what that means. Many companies aren't reneging on open source. The ones that are reneging can't compete on what they are selling, so they have to compete on what they're not selling.


Bad actors want to take advantage no matter what. It is the same case as Red Hat recent moves not to provide easy-to-rebrand linux distribution sources. Before they went the extra mile to foster collaboration, but were forced to be less friendly because of freeloaders.

Similar point here. Hashicorp have very good products that are open source as a way to foster collaboration. Freeloaders rebrand it and re-sell with no added value, so Hashicorp are forced to close it (or more like put a timer) to protect their investment.

As I said, I'm a big fan of open-source, and have been working on it for a long time, but am growing more and more frustrated with the current state of things, so much so, that it makes a lot of sense to me that companies that start with great collaboration spirit are forced to tighten their sources due to bad actors in the system.


I consider building a moat on open source contributions (that have to assign their copyright) then closing off to be something a "bad actor" would do.


Not at all. It's a defense mechanism that many are forced to do in order to protect from freeloaders.




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