I will try to put myself as an outsider and just reflect on what I see. We have a very innovative Linux distribution / packaging etc software, where there is no dominant commercial actor. Instead there are a number of smaller companies specializing in evolving the ecosystem, selling services around it and so on. There is opportunity in Nix future for a commercial actor to make a lot of money by becoming the most trusted authority in aspects of it. Becoming the next Red Hat or something like that. I sense there is a lot of positioning and hustling to become THE Nix company that takes pole position and becomes the dominant one.
Once in a while, there have been an announcement like this, which has not been well received. I am a little worried about it, and what it can lead to for the future. I worry it can split the community and be harmful to the future of very innovative software. I am trying to think of a similar situation within another area of the Linux or Open Source space, but can't really come up with good examples.
Interested to hear if these thoughts are well founded or just a bad take.
We strongly value open source software through and through, and have a team of long term contributors to open-source projects and communities. Part of open source is being allowed to build and experiment and see what happens. I find it unfortunate that people respond so strongly to our work, but I think part of it is a bit of fear of the unknown. We’ve published a lot of tools that we think are really nice, and almost all of them are totally open source and free (though the flakehub.com backend currently is not). Hopefully in the end the proof is in the pudding.
Once in a while, there have been an announcement like this, which has not been well received. I am a little worried about it, and what it can lead to for the future. I worry it can split the community and be harmful to the future of very innovative software. I am trying to think of a similar situation within another area of the Linux or Open Source space, but can't really come up with good examples.
Interested to hear if these thoughts are well founded or just a bad take.
reply