Stephen O'Grady of RedMonk joins Bryan, Adam, and the Oxide Friends to talk about the dead end of proprietary software masquerading as open source that the industry is drifting into. We walk inside baseball including some coordination on the part of offenders. We also talk some actual baseball... but only for about 12:40.
Show Notes
Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: October 24th, 2022
Open Source Inside Baseball
We've been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it's not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for October 24th, 2022.
In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, our special guest was dear friend-of-Oxide, Stephen O'Grady.
Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:
- For non-American and/or non-baseball fans "inside baseball" is an idiom meaning "an expert's take or opinion"
- Also, Stephen, Bryan, and Adam love actual baseball so there was quite a bit of that as well...
- For the baseball fans, the Bryce Harper at bat we were so excited about
- The main event: Stephen's The Dead End
Creators & Guests
What is Oxide and Friends?
Oxide hosts a weekly Discord show where we discuss a wide range of topics: computer history, startups, Oxide hardware bringup, and other topics du jour. These are the recordings in podcast form.
Join us live (usually Mondays at 5pm PT) https://discord.gg/gcQxNHAKCB
Subscribe to our calendar: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/c_318925f4185aa71c4524d0d6127f31058c9e21f29f017d48a0fca6f564969cd0%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics
Steven, thanks for joining us. This is, great to have you here. And thanks for all the as long as I've got here, thanks
Speaker 2:for a monthtoberfest. That was so great.
Speaker 3:No. No. Thank you. I mean, it was, it was great to have everybody there. You know, really appreciate you coming out to speak.
Speaker 3:And, man, just it's just good to see people in person. It's hard to do safely, but, yeah, there's there's parts that you just can't can't duplicate.
Speaker 2:You guys did a great job. And, actually, you you if we're just kicking off a little bit on how you, on the kind of the way you operated the conference from a safety perspective? Because I'm not seeing other conferences do that, and I thought you all did a terrific job.
Speaker 3:So, you know, we tried to to do a couple things. So we switched our venue. So our old venue was great. It was a it was a public library in town, Portland, Maine that is. And it's a fantastic facility, but it's underground.
Speaker 3:There's no circulation, nothing. So we moved venues. We had a much bigger, wider space, which had a big garage door at one end, doors at the other so we can get some airflow. We invested in air filtration, so we just brought in a couple portable filters, you know, whatever the wire cut recommendation was. And then I believe it was through Corey Gilmore.
Speaker 3:I think that's where we got the name. Anyway, we found a contractor called the TENSAFE, and they basically mailed test to everybody. They took proof of vaccination, and it was just, you know, they they took the the heavy lifting off our side because we knew all the way, you know, sort of all along we wanted to do, you know, have a vaccination requirement and test and all that, but trying to do all that on top of the, event logistics would have just been the nightmare. So, you know, there were a couple hiccups here and there, but by and large, it seems to as far as I know, we haven't sort of been a super spreader event. We had a couple people, not attend because they the pre vet testing, flagged they were positive.
Speaker 3:We had 1, person at the event test positive. And, I've been sort of waiting with bated breath, but I haven't heard anybody else who who caught it. So, it
Speaker 2:Well, it was yeah. Much appreciated as an attendee. And, that was I think you took a very conscientious approach, and it allowed us to get get because you said it's great to be back in person again. So it was Yeah. You know, trying to find a way to do that safely.
Speaker 2:And and, Adam, you've never been to a festival. Like, have you?
Speaker 4:Never. Never. On the bucket list. Never. Really, really wanna go.
Speaker 2:Wait wait That's so angry. Exactly.
Speaker 4:No. Nobody nobody would blame but me, but I'm I would love to go someday.
Speaker 2:What we need is I I I I I wanna do Monctober West. I I I confess.
Speaker 4:Should we do it in Portland as well? Yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, my god. I'd oh.
Speaker 3:I think this is this is like a libel or a slander
Speaker 2:suit. Yeah. Exactly. But I because it but it's I mean, it's lovely to be in, in I've learned not to wait into the the Portland's dispute. It's lovely to be in Portland, Maine.
Speaker 2:And it was anyway, it's a great conference. And, I know it's it's rightfully on a bunch of bucket lists, and I feel privileged to have been there. So thanks again, Steven, for for having us. It was terrific. Pleasure.
Speaker 2:And then I I feel like, before we get to open source, I are are we get do we get to talk a little bit of baseball? We get we
Speaker 4:kinda hopes I would come on.
Speaker 3:Well, that that depends. Like, are we we're not gonna talk about our season. Right? We're gonna talk about other seasons.
Speaker 2:Of course. No. No. No. We're we we are only gonna crap on other teams because all of our teams have been are are a disappointment.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Baseball season's been over for 3 months. Right?
Speaker 2:3 months. How about 6, pal? This so the did you watch because, Adam, I know you Child of Duty prevented you from watching any of the games this weekend.
Speaker 4:Live. Yes. I got I got a bunch of
Speaker 2:of replays, but yeah. And and, Steve, I don't know. Do you watch baseball with your daughter? Is she at the level at the shitty age where she can appreciate it yet?
Speaker 3:I can get her to watch, like, probably 10 minutes of a Red Sox
Speaker 2:game. Right. They're bats.
Speaker 3:That's it. No. I didn't I didn't actually watch for the most part. I had the buy the radio feeds up, and, you know, blast MLB for not subjecting it to the national feed. So then I don't have to listen to Smolts and everything else.
Speaker 3:It's like, okay. Great.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's wonderful. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Pick a feed.
Speaker 2:It's lovely. So unlike the 2 of you who really grew up as baseball fans, both Red Sox fans, I did not really grow up a baseball fan at all. I really baseball is a pure post kid thing for me. I only got into baseball when my kids got into baseball. So, for me, like, being a baseball fan is is is pure.
Speaker 2:And so I'm just really trying to give you both hope that there is, we we that you will not have to in the future, you will not have to choose between family time and baseball time. These things become 1 and the same.
Speaker 3:So it was That'd be great. If I can pull that off, that'd be wonderful. Yeah. Exactly.
Speaker 2:And I know, like, plenty of people are not baseball fans, but if you would be watching postseason baseball the thing about baseball, if you are not a baseball fan, is that baseball, I if you don't understand necessarily what's going on like cricket, it can feel boring. But the thing about baseball is it can really hold you on the edge of your seat for a long period of time. And definitely, I I mean, we're obviously all rooting against the Astros, please. I mean, I I'm this is it goes without saying. I'm not
Speaker 3:I guess we are, but in other words, like
Speaker 2:Jesus Christ. Do you have the same problem as Adam and I have a boss who has a little too much ambiguity around
Speaker 3:You're talking about you're talking about a fandom that I don't remember what years this was, but they had a an Easter egg hunt at the old, was it Veterans Stadium, Chile? And then
Speaker 2:Oh, shoot. Bunch. Okay.
Speaker 3:All the kids came out, and all the fans booed because they didn't find an egg. And you're just like
Speaker 2:It's that you probably love. Okay. So first of all, I I I I like the fact that you are in no way attempting to defend the Astros. You are merely making a mistake that, like, I actually lesser of 2 evils. Exactly.
Speaker 2:I actually dislike the other team even more, which I actually I've got total respect for, because we're obviously, and, actually, with if you because you don't watch a baseball game with, like, Alex, and I know you and I both watched Tobin play, Adam, but you and I have not. And my my 15 year old is, very opinionated. This apple did not fall far from the tree. And, apparently, all of the the venom that I've got reserved for, I think, like, nerdier stuff, he definitely pours into sports and is he's got some opinions about the Astros. This is right versus wrong for him.
Speaker 2:So
Speaker 4:I mean, you you got, the the cheating scandal. I mean, I could go on and on. And and then, yeah. I mean, also, you got, like, a rod announcing. Yes.
Speaker 3:Here here's the thing. This is that the the thing I find interesting is, is that I would say the overwhelming majority of the people who are down in the Astros and I'm not defending them. But it's interesting that this is uniquely bad. And then you ask them like, oh, you've heard, you know, the shot heard around the world, right? And they're like, yeah, of course.
Speaker 3:Like seminal moment in baseball history. And you're like, yeah. You know, they had a radio feed for the call. Right? So he knew exactly what pitch was coming.
Speaker 3:It's essentially exactly the same setup just with, you know, for use technology instead. And people were like, wait,
Speaker 2:what? This has happened?
Speaker 3:And you're like, yeah. Literally, the history of the sport is a history of cheating. They come up with new and different ways to do it. The technology changes, but the cheating literally never does. It is.
Speaker 3:So I don't know. It's it's fun.
Speaker 2:It is that that you certainly, there is truth to that, but I think it's also that the the when you've got it's when it's when you've got kinda one team that's kind of violating the more of mores of the sport that you, I I I feel that the and what actually did result in a rule changes. Right? I mean, that they actually for those who don't know, the Astros were in, in 2017. They were stealing signs so the batter could determine what pitch is coming. So if you're getting if you're not a baseball fan, the when you are what you are watching when you're watching a batter at the plate, it they are are psychologically, physiologically blind for the last 2 thirds of that ball is traveling to the plate.
Speaker 2:And the difference between a fastball and a change up is really just difference of velocity. And if you know which one is coming, you can you know to lay off the change up. This this is too much inside baseball folks, I'm sure. But what the the the Astros would had a, they they were intercepting the signs from the catcher. They were intercepting the communications from the catcher to the pitcher by having a camera in the outfield, and then they were then conveying that electronically.
Speaker 2:And they were banging on a drum to indicate which pitch was coming. As Steven is pointing out, this is not the first time that sign signs have been stolen. This and this has happened, like, over and over again in baseball history. Right, Steven?
Speaker 3:Over and over and over.
Speaker 2:So yeah. But but no more. But no more because they are now going they are now communicating via headset to the pitcher.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And the vendor for that headset, you know, has claimed that it's it's totally unhackable. So
Speaker 2:I don't know. I oh, well and so, actually, something, Adam, that I have not told you yet, and, actually, Steve is on the my my my oldest is pitching in college, and he is gonna he he's got their he will pitch with the headset this year.
Speaker 4:Oh, wow. Like the pitch tronic or whatever it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah. The pay whatever it is. The pitch tronic 2,000. Like, they are gonna so I'll I'll I'll be able to give you a a firsthand report of the of the technical difficulties of this thing. I I'm sure it's like the what I wanna know is what firmware is running on this stuff, and I I'm sure it's alright.
Speaker 2:Well, that's a good, the so the one thing I wanna say is if you because, Adam, you I know you did not see Bryce Harper's at bat yesterday.
Speaker 4:I have since watched it, and
Speaker 3:it was spectacular.
Speaker 2:Oh, man. That was that guy is so goddamn good. Steven, what do you feel about Bryce Harper?
Speaker 3:He's just really, really, really good.
Speaker 2:He is really, really good.
Speaker 3:He The difficulty is is that, you know, when you come into the league without much hype, it's just, you know, it it I can't remember who said this the other day, but it's right, which was basically that he's going to be looked at as could have been more. And it's like, yeah. Because, you know, they made him out as, like, the second coming coming out of high school. Like Right. Nobody nobody can live up to that.
Speaker 3:Like, the dude is just really good. He's an excellent player.
Speaker 2:He's really good. And so if you get a chance in the I promise the last on baseball will get on the open source here in a second. But but if anyone gets a chance to watch that full at bat yesterday, the scenario is there's a runner on that the Phillies are down by a run, and he's got a pitcher on the mound, Suarez, who I love. Great story. Took a long time to get into the league.
Speaker 2:Really a terrific pitcher, and he gets Harper gets way behind in the count. He gets behind in the count 1 to 2, which is what I would say, 1 ball, 2 strikes. And the and I'm, like, with my again, I'm watching it with my my kids and my son's a pitcher. We're both like, give him the off speed. And Steven Ernie saw that pitch, but he gave him a perfect off speed, slider, I think.
Speaker 2:But the exact pitch you'd want, he'd been pitching at 96, 97, that's coming at 92, dropping out of the zone. And it is a pitch that I don't think I've ever seen anyone I mean, he laid off that pitch, which was extraordinary. The ability to lay off that pitch is, like and then they hit him the home run on the next pitch. But he's very good.
Speaker 3:He's a Jets. He is.
Speaker 2:He he's him as as as the Youngs say. He's definitely him. Alright. So that we got we got the baseball out of the system. That was fun.
Speaker 2:The, so, Steven, I in part, we wanted to not not just have you on here to talk about season baseball, and our our shared enemies. But the, this piece that you wrote, I guess, like, last week. Right? When when did it get pick it got picked up by Hacker News, though? I wanna say, like, a week ago on Yes.
Speaker 2:That's right. And, you called it the the the the dead end, and this is, all about this kind of trend that we have seen over the last 3 years. Right? Because it's ringing 2018 that this started, I think. Is that right?
Speaker 2:Something like that. It's but the this it kind of the end of 2018 is when that's certainly when I was, like when I think when Confluent was one of the first ones. Who was the who was the first vendor to do this? Like, a a couple of them did it.
Speaker 3:I should know that. I don't. You know, so, basically, you know, you you had a couple of them that, you know, e each one and this is this sort of mainstream today. Each one that does it makes it easier for the next one to go. Yes.
Speaker 3:And the difficulty is we were talking to so many of the companies, you know, get either getting briefed or in some cases providing, you know, sort of input on, you know, some of these decisions, you know, behind the scenes. So I'm trying to that's a good question. I should know that. I should go look that up.
Speaker 2:But I think you're right that that each one of these made it easier. So I think and I think I wanna see Mongo was early. I mean, there are a couple of them. Mhmm. And then Yeah.
Speaker 2:They they just kind of seem to accelerate. And next thing you know, it's confluent and then it's cockroach and that I mean, it's just a bunch of these folks. And they are you know, you find it in your piece. And, Adam, I don't know who did this resonated with you as well, but I really like Steven's phraseology. It's like, I have trying to have it both ways.
Speaker 2:And trying to have the kind of organic growth of open source with the with the, honestly, the the margins and the lock in of proprietary software. Steven, I assume that that that's a that's a fair rephrasing.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yep. That's pretty much exactly what's happening. You know, basically, it's just, you know, they they, ultimately, folks wanna have their cake and eat it too. And this seems to be, you know, the new direction, you know, of the, you know, at least the you know, from the commercial side of things.
Speaker 3:You know, this is what people are are doing. And, you know, as we've discussed, each company that sort of follows this path makes it easier for the next one to do so. So, very foolishly and far too optimistically, I don't know what year it was, Probably 16 or 17. I had thought like, oh, hey. This is, you know, gonna be a short lived phenomenon.
Speaker 3:And, yeah, that was that that's not that's not up there on my list of of predictions that I've
Speaker 2:I thought it would I was with you, though. I thought it was a short lived that was gonna be a short lived phenomena. I actually didn't think other companies I'm like, alright. Like, you know, Mongo has done this, but another but other companies won't. And it just, like, they kinda felt like Domino's.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. One of the things that you and I can't remember if you said it in the piece or if you said it in that hacker news comment. But, like but certainly something that I and I know you guys you did see in the piece as well. That part of the reason they thought Domino's is because investors were actually pushing for this.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I'm I'm sort sort of limited in terms of what I can say here because, you know, a lot of the a lot of the conversations we have are other primary people telling me things off the record. But what I can say is that, in, I don't know, the year or 2, again, I have to sort of have the timeframe in front of me, but, you know, basically, immediately prior to several of these companies decisions. A particular investor, organized a essentially, I don't know, meeting, call it what you will, you know, sort of of, large scale open source commercial ventures, with the express intent of encouraging them to to go down this path. Some of these were portfolio companies, a particular investor, some were not, and sort of had no relationship.
Speaker 3:And, you know, a couple of companies ended up going down that path. They, sort of, you know, interestingly in in, you know, I don't know, arguably, problematically for them, they all went off their own path for the most part. Right? So, you know, if you look at one of the problems with this approach is that they've all done something different. Right?
Speaker 3:It's not as if we've come up with a okay. Here's the flavor. It's the same standardized flavor and you prove it once, then you're good to go. Everybody's got sort of a little bit of a different variant. You know, this is what the open source community fought for years as license proliferation.
Speaker 3:Oh, god. And, so they all went off and did their own thing. And once this started happening, you know, there were a bunch of other, you know, sort of conversations amongst board members, other investors, you know, began to sort of agitate for this as an approach. So, I'm trying to remember if it's a public source or not, so I probably shouldn't say. But anyhow, there was a, sort of one of the one of the folks, one of the founders of an open source company, had said, you know, hey.
Speaker 3:Look. A a, you know, one of our investors came to us and said, you know, hey. We want you to do, you know, sort of x y z. And he was like, no. You know, we're we're not doing that, you know, because, you know, it in my words, not his.
Speaker 3:You know, effectively, this is a rug pull pull, you know, for all of the people who contributed, you know, to our project under the terms of the original license. Right? So, yeah, it is, you know, sort of, you know, you you see sort of the companies when they come out with this, will typically sort of argue it in various terms. Right? You know, we need to do this because people are free living off of projects.
Speaker 3:You see some defenders of these companies saying, well, they can't make any money, which is interesting because lot of these companies have gone public and are worth, you know, multiple $1,000,000. Yeah. But set that aside. And, you know, what you end up seeing sort of, you know, from from different quarters is is these different arguments in sort of in in favor of, this this sort of new style of license. But the worst to me are the ones that, are the investors who are, they basically, you know, hold themselves up as we're saving open source.
Speaker 2:Oh, gosh.
Speaker 3:Those are the ones.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's rad. That is rich.
Speaker 3:Well and the the difficulty to me is is that look. If you are, you know, if you're a company and you are pursuing a commercial, endeavor behind a particular project and more more particularly, if you are responsible for all of the engineering, you know, at the end of the day, you get to pick your license. Like, I don't think this is helpful. I don't think it's a good thing for the industry as a whole. But, you know, look.
Speaker 3:This is this is, you know, this is your effort. You get to pick, you know, sort of what the terms of license are. Right? So that's you know, that can be frustrating to me at times, but so be it. You know, it's funny.
Speaker 3:I I talk to people and they're like, aren't some aren't a lot of these companies who've done this for clients? And I'm like, most of them at this point. And, you know, people are like, well, how does that work? I'm like, I don't only consult on things I like. Right?
Speaker 3:Not everybody does what I tell them. That's just not how how our business works. But, you know, to me, the the sort of like I said, the thing that really gets me are the, you know, this investor class who has no sort of notion of the potential for collateral damage here. Yeah. Doesn't really care, wants to make, you know, their investments, you know, sort of outperform, which, okay, you know, look, they're they're sort of acting on behalf of their show shareholders, but it's extremely myopic view, which is focused on the near term.
Speaker 3:Can I make these particular investments worth more? And if a bunch of damage is done long term in the process, I don't care. Right? So I will recoup my investment.
Speaker 4:Steven, there was a there's a ton there. And one of the things that I I heard you say and maybe missed in the article or or or the blog post was the the sort of smoke filled room with, like, the CTOs of a bunch of these open source projects being, like, collaborating effectively? I mean, I I know that the I've got the visuals probably wrong, but that doesn't sound that far off.
Speaker 3:I don't think it's that far off. You know, I you know, at least, it depends on who you talk to. It depends on, you know, sort of which company you're talking to. Right? And at what point, you know, so they made some of these decisions.
Speaker 3:But yeah. You know, there was a concerted effort, sort of on the part of investors to to have some of these conversations. You know, we had some of the some of the folks come and tell us about that. Like, hey. They're trying to get us to do x y z.
Speaker 3:I don't think it's the right thing to do. Blah blah blah. But it yeah. It's just, you know, it is I mean, in in some respects, it's so different than the, you know, sort of the hustle porn culture you see the investor class pushing. Right?
Speaker 3:Because at the end of the day, it burns people out and destroys, you know, families and lives and all that, but that's not their affair. Right? They don't care. Collateral damage is not their their, their concern. Right?
Speaker 3:Their concern is, you know, I want, you know, sort of a a particular return on my investment. And, you know, if, you know, some stuff has to get, you know, ground up in the process, then, you know, so be it. Right? So Yeah. And as you're as
Speaker 4:you're talking about the proliferation of these licenses, I almost thought, like, that could be almost designed, to kinda confuse the public. If they, like, landed on one license, then it's easy enough to, you know, vet and have opinions about and share them and and iterate. And I felt like it's almost too conspiratorial to think, hey. Get your own license, but be precise.
Speaker 3:I think, honestly, I think they would have preferred that. I know, you know, at least in one case, there was a desire to, you know, basically, you know, have people follow, you know, particular chain. And and this has been tried. Right? You know, so you've seen the, the commons clause, which now it's mostly now DOA, I believe.
Speaker 3:I don't I don't think any of the these sort of products or projects that used it, still do. But that was an example of, hey. We wanna push this particular approach and sort of standardize it, in in this way. And for those who are unfamiliar with that, basically, the commons clause was a writer that attached to a given open source license that essentially made it, a proprietary software. Right?
Speaker 3:It's basically if you're if you you know, this is common clause. So the source itself is available, but it overrides and supersedes the terms of the open source license. So one, you know, I had a problem with the terms, for sure, but the bigger issue is is that it then attempts to piggyback on and masquerade as open source software, where once you put commons clause at the end of whatever the open source license is, the open source license part of it is not relevant any longer. Right? Because that's, essentially converted, you know, by the terms of commons clause.
Speaker 3:So
Speaker 2:Yeah. So a couple of things other we're not thinking about the commons clause as quickly. I because I think that the the name is gross. I I feel like the you see abuse of commons, community, all these things that that imply sharing to imply that it's something other than what what it is. I also feel like Heather Meeker, what the hell?
Speaker 2:I I I mean, I I
Speaker 3:I was very surprised by that. And Heather Meeker, for those of you who are unaware, is is a a lawyer of some prominence who's done quite a bit of work in the open source space and was involved on the on the comms clause. And I just I I was I won't say more than that. I would I was surprised by that. Surprised.
Speaker 2:And then, honestly, like, anyone who talks about the commons clause is gonna talk about Heather Meeker in the first sentence because they I mean, they Meeker washed the commons clause, I feel. Because they use Heather's good name, I feel. And, you know, I don't know how she feels about it, but I that that's it. The whole thing is, I think, really, really gross. It's actually a relief to hear that you think that that that particular variant is is DOA.
Speaker 2:But the the part of the problem here is that they and I don't know if Steven if you got the the the same issue, that they are kinda tacking into waters where there and we already there is not a whole lot of precedence on case precedence on software to begin with. And there's no precedence on any of this stuff, and there's unlikely to ever be. So it I I mean, I think. I'm not a legal opinion, obviously. For my legal opinions, I turned my lawyer, Adam Levittall.
Speaker 2:So I I I will he's also my my accountant and hard branch here. So any, I'll check any questions follow-up questions to him. But I I think that there is unlikely there this is unlikely to result in litigation, and it's unfortunate because there's a bunch of stuff in there. It's like, wait a minute. Is this just like what is this?
Speaker 2:And because one of the issues I've got with this and, Steven, I don't know if you have the the same kind of concerns, but if you actually look at these repositories, they contain language that looks like a UI and then use the license. Mhmm. And it's like, wait a minute. So in any end user license agreements, famously, just like it implies, it you actually don't actually own the software. You are you you actually have a license to use the single copy of software that exists in the the vaults of Microsoft.
Speaker 2:This is kind of like the theory at the time. And it's like, what does a EULA mean when I can build the software myself?
Speaker 3:I mean
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. It's like
Speaker 3:You know, in in the difficulty to, you know, to me in in some of these is the, you know, so as you know, right, there is a lack of case law behind a lot of the open source licensing we rely on today. Right? So that is, you know, sort of a, you know, that's a that's just a feature of the landscape clause, had a had a phrase in it that basically prohibited you from selling software if the value of the software derived entirely or substantially the lack of legal precision Yes. Is that you know, the lack of legal precision Yeah. In some of these in some of these new licenses is just on like, forget for what you think about open source or principles and all that.
Speaker 3:Just the lack the general lack of legal precision in some of these is just horrifying.
Speaker 2:Okay. So enough to become too conspiratorial. But do you think that that lack of legal precision is legally deliberate in that it is one lawyer broadcasting to another. Like, hey, by the way, like, if you want, roll the dice. But, hey, there's a lot of ambiguity here and who knows what it means.
Speaker 2:And actually, your safest route is to just license the software from us. I mean, are they is it am I being too conspiratorial
Speaker 4:to think that?
Speaker 3:No. I I think that's, you know, that is large business, there is zero chance you're ever going to to, you know, leverage one of these licenses.
Speaker 2:Right?
Speaker 3:Because you're not gonna sit there and say, okay. Nobody in this contract has defined substantial. So I have to, you know, to protect my organization, I have to take a maximalist view of that, a conservative view of that, and assume it, you know, pertain to everything. Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So that's point 1. Point 2 is is that, you know, I think, you know, certainly what has happened in many of the cases here is that it's really difficult to do what they wanna do. Right? Yes. In the sense that they're trying to thread this needle, which, you know, I I definitely don't wanna go down the ethical licensure, you know, rattle here.
Speaker 3:But that's a whole another thing where I'm like, you know, people want to use licenses to solve these problems. And at least in in my view, in a lot of cases, the license is not the appropriate tool. Right? And, you know, when you think about, you know, sort of this new class of license, to me, it's not a license problem. It's a business model problem Yes.
Speaker 3:That they are trying to address via license. Well, it turns out it's very difficult to do, and, therefore, the licenses reflect that because there's no clean way to implement the language to say, oh, this is great. You get what you need, and I get what I need and so on. And it's just yeah. It's, it's it's something of a mess.
Speaker 2:So I'm gonna actually combine 2 sources of frustration that I have with VC as an investment class into 1 superstorm of VC rates. If if if I may. I think the the so there are, I think, there are 2 problems here. One is that the VCs are building the flip fundamentally. Their their time horizon is so so tight.
Speaker 2:10 years, maybe 12 in some cases, you know, maybe as long as 14. But a 10 year time horizon from 1st capital in to cash out is actually not how our most valuable company that's not the time horizon over which our most valuable companies built. It takes longer than that to build. And so they're building fundamentally the flip. And I and the so they're looking for fast growth and the soft open source software gives and in particular, downloads gives you this illusion of product market fit because it's this way of getting it's kinda zero what feels like zero cost growth.
Speaker 2:And then they wanna monetize that, obviously, to create enterprise value for the company. But then the flip side is they also don't they only want to invest in software. So in other words, they they don't want to because, like, Oxide has got a very clear business model. Right? We sell an entire system.
Speaker 2:And for us, we can very safely make all of our software is open source. It does not threaten our business model. We know exactly what we're selling, and it can be under NPL. It's like, there's no funny business. No Right.
Speaker 2:There's gonna be no weird relicensing from us because and ditto for all those companies that, like, Google and Amazon and Meta for that matter know exactly what they sell. Right. And and the they are able to open source this stuff in and make true community contributions because they they're not undermining their own. But these VC firms don't want to fund things that gives them the kind of frustration. Number 2, they only wanna fund software.
Speaker 2:And if you and and and refuse to have a larger, more complicated system that you're actually selling to the user, who whoever that user may be. And as it kinda gets them into this trap where they want it both ways. I mean, I think you you nailed it, Steven, your piece. Like, they they really, truly want it both ways.
Speaker 4:Well well, there's one more piece to it too, which is nefarious, which is not only do they want, to monetize it in this variety of ways, they wanna prevent other folks from monetizing it. And that's where the sort of surprise comes, you know, when they or when they start wanting it both ways. When they see, you know, GitHub stars up into the right, revenue at 0. And meanwhile, other folks have managed to turn this open source software into dollars using, you know, in many cases, their their hardware investments.
Speaker 2:Right. Exactly. Their competitors.
Speaker 4:When it starts getting frustrating. When they say, why are these jerks making money off of my investment?
Speaker 3:Right. Which is called open source software.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Right. Right? Yeah. And by the way, it's like those those companies too, you could not build and I mean, Steven, I'm sure this thought has occurred to you as well.
Speaker 2:You could not build Amazon, Google, Meta without open source software. Open source software was actually necessary to be able to build those companies. Yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:But what but what about, you know, MongoDB, Confluent? I think the I think the case is even more acute there. Whereas, with Reed, you can't build Amazon, you can't build Facebook, you can't build Google, without open source software. And yet, they have a, you know, I think that in, you know, their open source contributions are not maybe as impressive or as ubiquitous as you as we would like. But the case for, you know, Mongo or Confluent, they're already standing on the shoulders of giants, but they kinda wanna cut people off from the top.
Speaker 4:They don't they don't want anyone staring on their shoulders.
Speaker 2:Well, in the Confluent. Yeah. Sorry, Steve. Go ahead. Before I get myself in trouble.
Speaker 3:No. I I mean, all I was gonna say was that, you know, basically, the you know, the pattern here is pretty straightforward. Right? Is that, you know, you have projects that are released under an open source license, typically permissive that, you know, those are exceptions in a Mongo carry the ADPL up until the time it was relicensed. But typically these days, they're permissive licenses.
Speaker 3:And for the folks in the audience that don't know a lot about licenses, permissive basically imposes minimal restrictions. Right? You typically have to reproduce, you know, the license itself. You have to, you know, sort of, in some cases, you know, convey patents, you know, with Apache and, you know, basically attribution. Right?
Speaker 3:There's just not a lot you have to do. You could actually take, you know, the open source software, wrap it up, you know, as a proprietary asset, and sell that. Right? And that's what the licenses permit you to do. So a lot of these open source projects, you know, sort of are are on the market, and some of them, you know, for reasons that, you know, may have something to do with technology, may have, you know, something to do with just ancillary factors, become sort of disproportionately popular.
Speaker 3:And this attracts a certain center of gravity, that gravity can fuel the rise of the company. And then, in many respects, the company itself and or its board and or its investors say, well, wait a minute. I'm making money off that. That's cool. And I've been able to go public.
Speaker 3:That's also cool. But Amazon and Google and and Microsoft, they can also do that, and I don't want that. So how do we how do we cut that off? Right? And, you know, that's ultimately the pattern.
Speaker 3:It's not super complicated at this point. And, you know, the difficulty is is that, you know, what you, you know, what you end up with is a world where the pattern now is to basically, you know, sort of bait with this open source license, attract the community. Once the community is is quote unquote too big to fail, you switch the license. And it's too embedded. It's too it's sort of everywhere.
Speaker 3:So, you know, we basically just have to deal with it, and we're accumulating more and more of these things over time, which then normalizes the behavior moving forward. And, well, then you end up with the situation we're in today.
Speaker 2:Well, and you so it it normalizes the behavior moving forward, which is bad. It also, I think, puts an impediment in front of more legitimate open source projects that don't intend to relicense. It erodes trust. So those open source projects that have copyright assignment, which by the way Yep. I think at at this point, I don't think open source projects should have copyright.
Speaker 2:I think that that is the contributor's check, is to have the the copyright be held by all contributors. That's what we do on all of our projects. And we use we're big friends of the MPL 2, because it it allows you it gets you out from the the kind of the the DSOs, and there's a bunch things that it gets you out of, and it allows all contributors to effectively hold copyright very easily. And then we assures that you basically can't relicense, which I think is very important for contributors to know. Another thing that actually I gotta say really rubs me the wrong way about, Adam, what you're describing, which to me is like these projects pulling the ladder up behind them.
Speaker 2:If you take it and I'm like, I'm sorry. I'm gonna name the names. If you look at Confluent, Confluent is based on Kafka. Kafka was developed at LinkedIn. It it LinkedIn is the one who I mean, it's like and I guess it's just so it's like the irony of having ire that these companies are using, say, Kafka.
Speaker 2:It's like, wait a minute. What? Like, sorry. Like, LinkedIn did not have to open source Kafka when they developed it. They did that for a bunch of good reasons, including their desire to contribute back some of the social capital that they had themselves have consumed.
Speaker 2:And then to, like, to turn that into a comp I mean, it's like it's super dirty to me. At least to do it in a way that is that is not cognizant of the fact that the whole company relies on that kind of corporate benevolence. I just I don't know. I mean, it's one with these things where it's like, am I the only one that sees the hypocrisy here?
Speaker 3:Yeah. It just it's, it it it's just really difficult to in my case, experience over and over. You know, it's like Groundhog Day or tomorrow or whatever, where it's just, it's the same scenario. And then every time one of the companies does this, people are like, oh, okay, so, you know, what are you going to say? And I'm like, I'm going to say the same thing I said last time, there's nothing new here, right?
Speaker 3:It's the same thing. It's the same sort of relicensing. And, you know, again, it comes down there there's it's a nuanced thing because in the sense where, as we discussed earlier, if company has singly developed all the assets, okay, like, I I have less of a sort of issue with that. I still think it's bad, but I, you know, looked there within their rights. But in other words, you know, you have a bunch of these projects which have taken copyright assignment Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, you know, from a community of contributors and then switch the the license on them. And it's like, oh, man. Like, you know, and then surprise, you know, all sorts of, you know, sort of downstream, implications become evident. Right? So in other words, you saw, aca, you know, was relicensed.
Speaker 3:And it's like, well, we didn't intend to sort of, you know, create this problem for the Apache Flink project. And it's like, yeah, that's why we have open source licenses.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:They're not these licenses because they work together, and these ones do not. So, yeah, it's just a it's a it's a tough it's a you know, honestly, I don't I don't know what the fix is at this point. Right? You know, because I've made the argument to, I don't know, probably every every company at some point who's done this and basically said, look. This is a business model problem.
Speaker 3:Here's the deal. You know, particularly on the database side of the house, I'm like, look. You know, really what what, you know, sort of the the market wants is they want to sort of run this as a service. And it took all of them longer than it should have. They all, you know, sort of more or less got there.
Speaker 3:And, you know, sort of that is a scenario where if it is if you are running that as a service and sort of giving the developer populations what they want in in that sort of form, you know, the open source side of the house is is a lot less, I don't know, is sort of crucial to you. Like, the software itself becomes, you know, not irrelevant certainly, but it's not really what you're defending. You're defending essentially a managed service business, which is a materially better business for most of these companies. Yes. Yes.
Speaker 3:So okay. What are you defending? Right? You know, because in all words, you look at, you know, for example, Mongo relicensed extensively to protect itself from the Amazon of the world, where, you know, Mongo was such a center of gravity that Amazon said, look, we're gonna sort of service this one way or another. And they went out and just did, you know, sort of API, compatibility in DocumentDB.
Speaker 3:And I had somebody, you know, try to make the argument. Well, it's like, oh, you know, they relicensed and that's why this didn't happen. I'm like, you like, the the launch of Document DB was, like, 4 months after they relicensed. Amazon even Amazon does not spin off a brand new service in 4 months. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like, they, you know, clearly did a clean reimplementation on their end because they didn't wanna deal with the AGPL, which was the license that, you know, was was retired in that case. So it's like they relicensed, solved nothing really. You know, it has you know, I you know, we talked to a large vendor. Oh, god. I think it was in Q1, I think, after that happened.
Speaker 3:And I was like, yep. We're, you know, we're we're everything is on hold, you know, sort of with, you know, relicensing and so on. So it's like, you know, you know, most of these companies as we've talked about have hit a certain center, you know, you know, basically, gravitational size. Right? Where they're not going anywhere.
Speaker 3:Right? You know, they're they're going to keep going up. More people are going to use them, because, you know, once you hit a, you know, it's very much a too big to fail thing. But it is absolutely a scenario where it's just, yeah, it's just it's a it's a problem, you know, for the industry, you know, because I can't remember if I use the piece or not, but I've certainly used it in conversation where it's like, I had a English teacher at one point. I think it was in high school, told me, look, you know, you're gonna have these philosophy professors in college, and they're gonna tell you that, Kant's categorical imperative is really hard to understand.
Speaker 3:And she's like, it is. But the only thing you need to know is basically it's like littering. If one person litters, it's not a big deal. If everybody litters, it becomes a big deal. And that ultimately is is the issue here where, you know, you had a company here or there and do it.
Speaker 3:Okay. You know, so be it. Not ideal, but, you know, survivable. But, you know, when it gets to the point that it is now where it's becoming, you know, essentially a de facto pattern, you know, from a commercialization standpoint, you know, a, that's a it's a problem long term for the industry, but, b, I don't see any sort of market forces poised to to address this.
Speaker 2:So I guess one of the things that that I'm curious sorry, Adam. Go ahead. I'll
Speaker 4:Oh, I I I wanna say, Steven, the the title of the piece is dead end. And I gotta say, like, in some ways, I found that hopeful. Like, hopeful for that no. That maybe we've watched that dead end. But now it's it's, it's almost more like a warning.
Speaker 4:Right?
Speaker 3:It was it was not a hopeful title at all.
Speaker 4:No. No. No. But I guess I guess the hope of it being that, you know, this is a dead end that, like, we as an industry can't proceed out of this quagmire, But now it's almost like a warning saying, this is the dead end we're heading to, and I don't see a way out once once this becomes, the prevailing way that software is delivered.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, Ian, you've had your hand up with that. And then and then I but, you know, I wanna get to you because you had your hand up for a long time.
Speaker 5:Yeah. I was kinda curious about the timing of this post because, a number of the the companies we're referring to were covered under the 2019 post coverage and the source available feature. So was it the ACA license change that prompted the post now given that a lot of the companies that we're talking about, you know, had already made these changes before?
Speaker 2:It's a great question.
Speaker 3:I mean, yes. You know, that that was probably the precipitating trigger. You know, but really, like I said, this is just sort of a, it's becoming a pattern. I think the thing that was significant in different about about, Akka specifically was that there are exceptions. But for the most part, the the sort of blast radius here as it as it were, was contained to the database space.
Speaker 3:Right? You know, we're just sort of adjacent in streaming and and so on. We did we hadn't seen, you know, really, you know, sort of this effort, you know, go on in the the sort of runtime category as it were. And, you know, I I you know, my my suspicion is that, you know, the Okta having done this, you know, I think you'll end up seeing other sort of runtime projects follow. And, you know, at that point, you know, it's one thing that you can write it off.
Speaker 3:The database base has always been sort of a little different. And, you know, if this begins to sort of spread to adjacent, categories of of software outwards from sort of the database world, then yeah. It, I I mean, I I think it's very, very likely it'll end up be a sort of endemic pattern and something moving forward.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So okay. So just to give you the other side of it and maybe the hopefulness of the dead end, to to Adam's point. I also feel though that, you know, we all watched, open source software devour proprietary software. Proprietary software died at the hands of open source software when there was actually a huge asymmetry between them with a huge disparity between them from even from a quality perspective.
Speaker 2:And the the the economics of open source were so indisputable. And I kind of feel it's the same thing here where when I've got a kind of strangely licensed variant or something that's gonna require me to get a license from them to go use the thing that I started using on GitHub versus something that doesn't have any of those covenants or impediments, I I'm gonna naturally use the thing that that and I'm gonna go into go contribute to those things as well. I mean, I think that the when when I when Steve question when Steve the one question I have for you is whether we are still seeing kind of, downloads and GitHub stars up into the right as a metric that VCs care about. Certainly, our VCs don't care about it, so it's not something not a question that has come up for us, but the because I think there was a time when when people were really viewing downloads as a proxy for product market fit. I remember talking to one of the I know I know we talked with some of the Docker episode, but I remember talking to about one of the investors in Docker being like, hey, you know, out of curiosity, like, do you think it's possible that these things are so popular because developers need something to to serve a particular purpose And they know that these things can't be monetized.
Speaker 2:That the popularity of them, it's not product market fit. It is actually the the that there can never be a true product market that because you can't actually monetize it. And he was kinda laughing about it for a second. He's like, wait a minute. You think that's true?
Speaker 2:And I'm like, well, I think it might be true. I mean, it's it's definitely true for us. I mean, if you look at the stuff that we are using it, we will we are not that we would necessarily be opposed to maybe some kind of support arrangements, but although we don't have any any of those in place. But we are the the our stack is using all open source software. And, yes, we use CockroachDB, but we're using the open source variant of Cockroach.
Speaker 2:And we are for every other component of the stack, we are using it we're using a true open source variant that allows us to give to to redistribute what we're doing. And I can't imagine that we're the only ones that are although Cockroach seems to tell us we're the only a lot. So maybe.
Speaker 3:All I can all I can tell you is is that, you know, I I joke about this with our clients all the time, right, where we had, you know, they'll they'll say, well, you know, for what about lock in and and everything else? And, you know, I'll I'll I basically tell them variants the same story. So if, you know, you go out and talk to CIOs, and, they'll they'll all say something like, okay. Yeah. You know what?
Speaker 3:I got locked into Windows, and I didn't like it. And then I got locked into VMware, and I didn't like it. So I'm not gonna get locked in again. Right? They're like, okay.
Speaker 3:And they're like, okay. Using cloud. They're like, yeah. You're like, okay. So what are you using for cloud?
Speaker 3:And they're like, well, Dynamo, Kinesis, Redshift. Right. You know, Aurora. And I'm like, okay. But these were all proprietary cloud services.
Speaker 3:And the gist of it, you know, the lesson, as it as it were, is basically that, you know, companies will tell you they're not gonna lock themselves in, you know, via proprietary software they can only get from one place. And if it is remotely more convenient, they will do it every day and twice on Sunday and not think twice about it. Gotcha. And, it's just, you know, that's that's the sort of way of the world, and that ultimately is what the investors, and, you know, sort of various members of the board have basically sort of realized. Right?
Speaker 3:Which is that, okay. You know, we can change the license, and our large customers aren't really gonna care, because, you know, we've been sort of quote, unquote, you know, they buy their way out of the license, you know, by by setting up a commercial agreement. And, you know, we have the developer sort of support and popularity that we need now. So, you know, we're not going anywhere. Nothing's gonna sort of come along and eat us as far as they as they think.
Speaker 3:And, you know, that's kinda kinda where we sit right now. Right? And it is yeah. It is not, to to Adam's point, it is not a hopeful dead end, you know, from my standpoint. But,
Speaker 2:quite
Speaker 3:quite the opposite.
Speaker 2:So do you feel that this is going to to spread to other I mean, because certainly, you talk about going into run times. I mean, one one thing that we've that has remained completely open for the moment is compiler tool chains, and that is a big shift from 20, 30 years ago. Oh, yeah. Do you do you see any I mean, I cannot imagine any of that changing in part because there are not venture funded companies behind these things.
Speaker 3:I would I would be I mean, in other words, you know, particularly from an enterprise software standpoint, you know, really what these businesses want is they wanna recreate historical businesses that they've known. And the compiler you know, to to your point, the compiler business, you know, at you know, obviously, it was proprietary. It was a it was a thing, you know, from a, you know, from a commercial standpoint, but it's not this sort of it's not viewed market wise as the same opportunity, say, as middleware. Right? Right.
Speaker 3:What a lot of companies would like to do if they can is come along and basically say, alright. You know what? You know, we had an entire class of of businesses paying, you know, just obscene amounts of money, for their runtime platforms. Like, how do I make that how do I replicate that? Right?
Speaker 3:How do I replicate this sort of existing known business? Because, ultimately, I mean, you look at the database space, you know, that's the most obvious one. Right? People looked at this. They got started with these developer focused open source projects, and then somebody thought, you know what?
Speaker 3:It'd be really cool if we could make the kind of money Oracle used to. So what how do we do that? Right? And
Speaker 2:Right. I don't
Speaker 3:I don't think that they'll I mean, put it this way. If this ends up continuing, it could impact, at some point, every every aspect of the market. But I think there's I think there's other lower hanging fruit that they'll hit first. So what's next? What is what
Speaker 2:did you answer that lower hanging fruit
Speaker 3:by them? In this
Speaker 4:in this dystopian future we're heading towards. Right?
Speaker 2:Right. I mean,
Speaker 3:I mean, honestly, I I you know, I don't I don't wanna speculate as to projects and that sort of motive and so on. But other words, you know, I think, if if Akka is any sort of example, I think we'll we'll end up seeing some more plays in that direction. Right? Yeah. More more same
Speaker 2:middleware. Infrastructure middleware.
Speaker 3:Yep. You know, this is like a a sort of, an application platform. It's a middleware type play. This is a market where people historically have been willing to throw tons of money at it. So what's a popular open source project here, and how do we relicense it?
Speaker 3:Right? So that's that would be that would be my bad.
Speaker 2:But Now is it would it be reasonable for folks to look to, for example, where a project's where there is no copyright assignment, it really can't be practically relicensed. I mean, it is it is technically cost relicensed, but it's just hard, very difficult.
Speaker 3:You know, with any put this way. I I guess my answer to that would be with any sufficiently large number of contributors. Right? So in other words, like, Linux Linux is effectively impossible to relicense. Right?
Speaker 2:Oh, Linux is extremely impossible to relicense.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:You know, actually, you wanna Yeah.
Speaker 3:I was gonna say the sheer number of contributors and in many cases, you know, some of them are dead. Right? So
Speaker 2:Yes. You know,
Speaker 3:then you'd be dealing with states and and everything else. You know, if it's a situation where it's a smaller team, right, of contributors, and they could be financially compensated, it any any sort of sizable community, you know, sort of individual contributors, who have not assigned copyright, then, no. Effectively, it's impossible to license.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I think that that number I mean, for Linux, it is it is long past impossible. I think that number is way, way lower. I mean, for for Linux, you have, like, a lot of dead people that have contributed to it. I mean, not to be too morbid about it.
Speaker 2:But the dead people are are dead people or dead companies are the biggest problem because those assets are now that are are copyright in this case is in the hands of someone who doesn't necessarily understand what it is and isn't. So, like, oh, wait a minute. Like, oh, is my house, like, built on an oil field? It's like, no. No.
Speaker 2:It's not an oil it's definitely not an oil field. We just need your permission to relicense it. It's like, well, if it's not an
Speaker 3:oil field, like, why why
Speaker 2:do you need my permission? Like, I don't know. Like, what's in it for me? It's like, well, kinda nothing's in it for you, but you need to do it. And this actually gets to another question I've got for you because one of the things you said is one of the the the the kind of the hinky things that things the the causes of the licenses is this, like, time delay of, like, oh, after 3 years, it will be at all with your license.
Speaker 2:Right? And, you know, you had an interesting comment in there and it kinda dovetailed into something else we said about the Spalsky piece a while ago about, like you're like, look. These companies know that the value of that software is basically 0. And it's like it's a paradox. Right?
Speaker 2:Because the value is not necessarily like, the value of Bash is not 0. Right. It it be but no one is going to pay for Bash. So and I'm you you know, there's this kind of like it it it it's, you know, it's like clean water at this point. It's like we we just rely on it.
Speaker 2:It's a constraint of the infrastructure. And so it's extremely valuable as a constraint of the infrastructure, but it's not something we're gonna pay for. And I feel like software has this more than other infrastructural aspects. I don't and I don't
Speaker 3:No. It's it's it's hard because in other words, you know, when, you know, I made the argument a number years ago, in a book called Software Paradox, you know, talking about sort of the declining commercial values of software. Right? And, you know, one of the things that that came out of the conversations both that preceded that book and and Paul's publication was the fact that, you know, when when we talk about value as it pertains to software, to your point, it's extraordinarily difficult to assess. Right.
Speaker 3:Right? Because the the sort of value of a software on an individual basis is gonna be immense, and yet, I'm not willing to pay for it. Right? True. Pay literally anything.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm not willing to pay, like, any I'm not willing to pay $2 a month. I'm not willing to pay for it. It's like, weird. I thought you built your entire company. No.
Speaker 2:No. Like, I have,
Speaker 3:but I'm
Speaker 2:definitely not spending $2 a month. Right.
Speaker 3:You know, and you see this all the time where it's like, you you think about the the havoc, you know, that was wreaked in one left pad, right? Oh, yeah. You know, it's like it is like everything breaks and it's like, what is the value the commercial value of left pad? Well, I mean, nobody's really gonna pay for that. But then on the flip side, you take it out of the equation.
Speaker 3:It's like a goddamn house of cars that comes down. So, you know, the the the sort of value is difficult to sort of, you know, really assess, you know, sort of in any in any meaningful way. But, yeah, I probably should have been more precise and said, you know, really what we're talking about is a commercial value. Right? Because basically, the reason that, that style, you know, BSL style license is willing to graduate these projects is because nobody cares about it, right, at that point.
Speaker 3:Right. I mean, yes, if you're using it, that has value to you. You know, it's sort of wonderful. But the you know, nobody's going to start a commercial competitor and say, I'm gonna compete with these guys. I'm just 2 years behind them.
Speaker 4:That's right. Remember, it's like retro databases. Hey. Remember version 6. Right?
Speaker 4:Yeah. Steven, just to pause, I I I loved the software paradox, and I just wanted to make sure that that didn't skip by too quickly for folks. It's a great read for for folks who have not read it, and available in major bookstores or whatever on Amazon.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And I'll take you It's awesome. And the the primary criticism, just like the primary criticism of the new key makers that it's too short. So
Speaker 2:They are actually kind of short. They are a little bit short.
Speaker 3:Well, hey.
Speaker 4:If you're a slow reader, then it's it's it's just very dense.
Speaker 2:Right. They're good. They are great. Both books are are are terrific. And and I and I would also say that in both cases, you I mean, your impression.
Speaker 2:I mean, you you you kind of you saw this, I think, before before the the kind of industry writ large saw it, and saw the importance. And I think in particular, the and you talk about this obviously in the new kingmakers, but the developers making effectively business decisions about what components to incorporate. And, I I mean, I feel that part of the reason that these open source momentum behind them is because you've got developers at the other end who are like, I need something to fill in this gap, and I'm I definitely
Speaker 3:I'm not gonna run a
Speaker 2:purchase order process for it. So I need something that I can pull off GitHub and just go. And then you've got these companies that are then trying to turn that like, okay. So how do I become Oracle based on those number of downloads? It's like, yeah.
Speaker 2:You sorry.
Speaker 3:You you don't. You don't.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry. Yeah. That's like that is actually a that Oracle represents a business model that really doesn't exist anymore. And I see, you must also I certainly get frustrated when people look at Red Hat as a model here because it the Red Hat did not because of anything that Red Hat did did incorrectly, but just because Red Hat was benefiting from trends much larger than Red Hat. And in particular, it was it was Intel x86 displacing all of the UNIX risk vendors.
Speaker 2:May they rest in peace. The you know, you you kinda had there were a bunch of things that were happening at once of which the rise of open source operating systems was one component of that. And, yes, Red Hat was able to build a lot of value based on that, but it's not necessarily replicable, I don't think. I mean, I do. What's your take on that?
Speaker 3:No. I think that's right. You know, Red Hat has, you know, such a, you know, sort of unique set of of, I guess, features, I guess, you'd call it in its evolution that is, you know I mean, honestly, any of the standalone biz you know, software businesses, right, are, you know, can you spin up a standalone software business in 2022? For sure. Is it going to be anything like it used to be?
Speaker 3:Not even close. But to your point, the interesting thing to me, and this is, you know, one of the funny things, you know, we're talking all these open source companies over time. I'm like, you know, you you can replicate that business. It's just going and delivering in the cloud. Right?
Speaker 2:And, you
Speaker 3:know, you look at the the sort of, you know, some of the numbers there, like, you know, Mongo, for or or for the on prem business, it took them, it was like, 2a half, definitely less than 3 to hit that with the service business. Right? The managed service business. So it's like
Speaker 2:Yes. And it's
Speaker 3:replicate these margins, but you're not just selling the software. You're selling the combination of the software and the service and running it for somebody.
Speaker 2:And the margins will be lower. The margins are not gonna be 90%. They're gonna be 65%. And 65% is a good margin about around which you can build a sustainable company. Not that
Speaker 3:at all.
Speaker 4:But it's so hard when you're a public company to make that transition from 90 plus percent margins to, you know, blended down, with, you know, pulling it down with that 60% margin. That's really hard for
Speaker 3:the street to swallow, I think.
Speaker 2:I I think it is kind of tragic that we not that we should be embracing low margin businesses, but the fact that we that it's kinda 90% or bust from a margin perspective because it's actually not the way the biggest, most successful businesses have been built. They've not and I you know, this is I I and I've mentioned oh, actually, Steve, the pop quiz from Andresen's 2011 softwares eating the world piece. Yeah. Do you remember can you name the software companies that Andresen identifies Don't take
Speaker 3:it away from me. It's our
Speaker 4:But for,
Speaker 2:Don't take it away from me. Pixar. Aurora.
Speaker 3:Oh god. No. I don't I don't remember them.
Speaker 2:Groupon, Foursquare, Zynga. And I've I've forgotten one of it. But it's like, oh, it's like, oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, these these companies are basically they were sugar highs.
Speaker 2:They they were Yeah. The they were high margin, flash in the pan, and they were unloaded by their investors, made a lot of money for their investors, did not necessarily make a lot of money for the Main Street investor, and are not necessarily I mean, they're not they certainly not reached ubiquity. Certainly, no one is, you know, thanking Foursquare and Zynga for, you know, for delivering them tremendous value today.
Speaker 3:And Oh, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:And it's like we've I I I really feel that in addition to, I think, decrying these behaviors, we rightfully are, like, we we need software. Yes. It's eating the world, but it it's eating the world in more complicated vessels. Like, your services example from Mongo. It's like running services is that's something that people will pay for because you act it's actually, like, work.
Speaker 2:It's it's it's not just like software merchants. Not to get too much on a rant here, but it's I
Speaker 3:think it's I think it's too late for that. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I think it's way too late for that. But so and then what has been the the reception to the piece? So the piece kind of prompted I think it sounds like Steven, like, the the AKA thing definitely was maybe what sort of pushed over the edge. What it what's been the reaction to it? Or have you have you had any customers or any of your clients been like, oh, this is what you keep saying to us.
Speaker 2:Right?
Speaker 3:No. I mean, you know, I I think that it's it's honestly it's a little bit, it's a little bit like an earnings call, right, in the sense that it's kinda baked in at this point. Like, my my opinion on these subjects is not Right. It's it surprises no one. Right?
Speaker 3:Everyone has heard it from me before. It's the point where
Speaker 2:I know that, Foy. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Exactly. Jacob, was joking at one point. You know, hit this thread on on one of the I don't even remember which relic it was. And he was like and, you know, shit like this is why, you know, s O'Grady, like, runs and hides, like, every time this comes up, you know, because it's like I said, it's basically, like, in Groundhog Day.
Speaker 3:It's like, here we go. Turn it all over again. Yeah. People have heard it from me before. You know, I think the thing, you know, when, you know, it made, you know, Hacker News, it's like I don't for the most part, you know, when our stuff, you know, hits over there, like, for for programming, I can put rank rankings, like, I'll pop in and just sort of answer questions and things like that if it makes Reddit.
Speaker 3:You know, when people have genuine questions about it, that's fine. And it's always fun when you get somebody who who's like, I don't think the author meant this, and I'm like, I am the author. That's always that's always fun. But, you know, I don't typically wade into those discussions all that much because it's just, you know, it's like any other sort of form in the Internet. It's not super productive.
Speaker 2:But, you
Speaker 3:know, one of the things with, you know, I'm I'm a little more sensitive on these issues largely because I just don't think, you know, we we have an entire generation of developers, you know, not for, you know, sort of anything that they have been wrong on their part, but they grew up in a world where open source was just the default. Right? It was just, hey. We take it for granted that it's here. Of course, you know, this is gonna be open source and so on.
Speaker 3:And they lacked the history of of, you know, some some, some of us who've been around and basically had to fight for this this you know, to get it to where it is today. So, you know, I will when issues around relicensing and so on pop up, I will occasionally pop in just to try to correct, you know, what I feel are, misimpressions of what's actually going on Yeah. Or how this works. Right? When somebody's like, hey.
Speaker 3:It's not actually you know, the I'm looking at page right now. It's like investors aren't the primary motivating factor here. I'm like,
Speaker 2:yeah. They kinda are. Actually,
Speaker 3:I I could tell you not in every case for sure, but I've, you know, I've been party to a lot of discussions that I could tell you investors, either directly, or indirectly via certain board members have been tremendously influential. Right?
Speaker 2:So it's like And they've been on the record about it. They've been on the I mean, you you you go look at at at what Mike Volpe said about Elastic in 2017, 2018. It's like they've been on the record, index, I presume. So they they they definitely been they're they're not hiding. They're they're hiding in plain sight.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So yeah. So the reactions have been, you know, I I think from some, you know, clients and so on. You know, for the most part, everybody is just like, yep. Okay.
Speaker 3:You know, there he is. You know, it's like old man yelling at the at the, you know, sort of open source licensing. But the reactions from a developer standpoint have been a little more little more frustrating.
Speaker 2:So I think but here's why I think that what it's important anyway. Because one of the things that I definitely wanted actually even in this very venue, you know, we had this terrific, open house a week ago, and, I had a number of people who were at Oxide saying, hey. You know, I just want you to thank you for the Twitter space because I'm early in my career, and I'm not always hanging out with engineers that are, you know, 20, 25 years in and, you know, 30 years in, 35 years in, whatever. And it's great to hear that perspective. And I do think that, like, that is part of the value that you're I mean, to me, like, Steven, you're not actually speaking to the companies that have already made this decision.
Speaker 2:You're not actually speaking to the venture capitalists who have already made this decision. You're actually speaking you're well, you're speaking to the Chorus. First of all, you're speaking to us, obviously. You know, we're, we're obviously great grateful that you're putting putting words to it, but you're really speaking to that rising generation that is looking at this being like, that seems like that seems wrong to me. And it's like if you're, you know, 23 and you're you're 25 and you're getting into the industry and contributing to an open source project and, you know, your company starts to talk about relicensing and that feels like it's a violation of a social contract.
Speaker 2:You're right. It is a violation of the social contract. And let us, the olds, tell you that your gut is telling you the right thing, that your parents did a good job raising you and you do it. Yes. There's a social contract here.
Speaker 2:And you like, that is it is not just you. And so I think, Steven, this is one of the the very valuable services that I think that you and and we collectively can offer is to to speak to those folks who are not necessarily in the arena right now, but are very much watching.
Speaker 3:Yeah. You know, that's you know, put it this way. I mean, to your point, you know, there are a lot of people who have made up their minds, you know, sort of one way or another. Right? And, there are a lot of people who are just, you know, sort of committed, you know, to I don't know, sort of apathy sort of as a as a overstatement.
Speaker 3:But but just, you know, it's beneath their sort of regard. Right? At this point, they have other things they need to worry about. But, you know, the hope is is that, you know, if you can talk to, you know, folks that are just like, oh, tell me more. Right?
Speaker 3:You know, because the difficulty is is that I mean, put it this way. You take, and this is absolutely a can of worms. I do not wanna open up. In other words, when it comes to things like, AI, right, and open source licensing and so on Totally. An area where I don't understand the implications of that properly.
Speaker 3:And I basically, for the most part, you know, outside of some some narrow areas where I have some expertise and, like, you know, I've I've, you know, had conversations in various spaces. That's kind of conversation where I just sit aside and listen. Right? And let people who are experts on this subject, you know, just sort of guide my thoughts and impressions. Right?
Speaker 3:And, you know, you just hope that, you know, in areas where these licenses are, you know, ultimately going to be an issue that people will be at least open minded enough, you know, sort of listen and say, yeah, you know, on an individual basis, this may not cause you a problem, but that's not what we're talking about. What we're talking about is the proliferation of these things one after another. What does that look like? Right? Because, you know, all of these things have, you know, sort of unintended consequences.
Speaker 3:You know, I mentioned the the the fling thing earlier. I'm quite certain that was not the intent, but that's what these things do. They introduce by their very nature collateral damage because they're intended to prevent certain use cases. And when you introduce that into ecosystems that have had nothing like that before, having instead been committed to open source licenses, which permit any use case, then, you know, all kinds of stuff is gonna happen, and you're probably not gonna like some of it. So Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. You just you just hope people are are just willing to keep an open mind and and listen to the folks who, have have seen some things when it comes to licensing.
Speaker 2:The, amen. And, you know, fortunately, I got I got a lot of confidence in the rising generation. Very I think that that, very community minded in in kind of a true and deep sense. So I I've I'm optimistic that, we will be that that this I'm still optimistic to say that this is a dead end question mark. Adam, I'm not trying to recast or fight all of them.
Speaker 2:They get optimism. No.
Speaker 4:I I think the the optimism is, you know, it's a dead end, kid. Stay away. You know? Right. Like, don't don't don't try BSL.
Speaker 4:It'll it'll do you wrong.
Speaker 2:It'll do you exactly. It'll do you wrong. Well, Steven, really, really appreciate you joining us. It's been great as always. Thank you again for Monctoberfest.
Speaker 2:It's obviously terrific. Thank you everyone for indulging us as we talked baseball a bit. I hey. Look. On the bright side, it wasn't cricket.
Speaker 2:I'm happy to go deep on cricket. Deepgram. I did I I just I I just want everyone to know myself is right here. So, but it's, a lot of fun. And I I so thanks again, Steven.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much also for joining us in the predictions episode. It was so much fun. And we'll have to do a predictions episode in 2023. So, hopefully, we'll see you then if if not soon.
Speaker 3:So it's a good plan. Always a planner.
Speaker 2:Alright. Thanks everybody. Take care.
Speaker 3:Thanks.