Ask HN: How will all these open source companies succeed? As a casual observer of HN it feels like there's an uptick in open source projects that aim to become companies. This is obviously a customer acquisition strategy, but I'm struggling to think through the long-term implications of this pattern on the market as a whole. What does this mean for customers/users of the projects? What does it mean for the companies? Their employees? I have a hunch that many of them will go out of business the moment they are asked (by their investors) to start thinking of how to generate revenue. At the same time, I recognize that I could have blindspots that prevent me from understanding something that will make them all work. Am I missing something? |