News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:AWS, MongoDB, and the Economic Realities of Open Source by scarface74 on Monday January 14, 2019 @10:31AM (#18903671)
I realize that the idea of “Commoditizing Your Complements” has gained new life lately on HN, but let’s give credit where it’s due - Joel Spolsky in 2002.

https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/

Re:AWS, MongoDB, and the Economic Realities of Open Source by ShardPhoenix on Monday January 14, 2019 @05:29PM (#18907140)
The first four words of the linked Gwern article are "Joel Spolsky in 2002". In fact he gives him credit 3 times!
Re:AWS, MongoDB, and the Economic Realities of Open Source by statictype on Monday January 14, 2019 @07:52PM (#18908011)
Yes but why not link to the original (which is also more readable)
Re:AWS, MongoDB, and the Economic Realities of Open Source by gaius on Monday January 14, 2019 @01:42PM (#18905233)
Sure, but Spolsky didn’t invent the concept. The idea is probably hundreds of years old.
Re:AWS, MongoDB, and the Economic Realities of Open Source by cstejerean on Monday January 14, 2019 @01:05PM (#18904897)
Well this is like an inverse for that strategy. If your core product is OSS you aren’t commoditizing its complements, but rather trying to build and charge for those complements (such as hosting or management services, consulting, etc) because you can’t charge for the product itself.
Re:AWS, MongoDB, and the Economic Realities of Open Source by scarface74 on Monday January 14, 2019 @08:37PM (#18908198)
For a profit seeking corporation, your core product is the product that makes you money.

Roku sells hardware, but the CEO has said in no uncertain terms that their core product is aggregating user data to sell to advertisers. That they don’t consider themselves a hardware company.

IBM was also big into open source to sell mainframes and services.

Re:AWS, MongoDB, and the Economic Realities of Open Source by kgwxd on Monday January 14, 2019 @11:14AM (#18904049)
Credit for what?
Re:AWS, MongoDB, and the Economic Realities of Open Source by mynegation on Monday January 14, 2019 @11:23AM (#18904106)
For “commoditize your complements” strategy, which was probably popularized by Stratechery but GP found earlier piece by Joel Spolsky about the same idea.
Re:AWS, MongoDB, and the Economic Realities of Open Source by kgwxd on Monday January 14, 2019 @11:43AM (#18904286)
So credit for a phrase? Neither invented the actual strategy.
Re:AWS, MongoDB, and the Economic Realities of Open Source by TuringNYC on Monday January 14, 2019 @12:44PM (#18904728)
There is a lot of value in distilling some amorphous concept or unclear practice into a simple rule that makes sense and frames it in a template, making it easy to both recognize and implement.
Re:AWS, MongoDB, and the Economic Realities of Open Source by scarface74 on Monday January 14, 2019 @12:09PM (#18904484)
Well, Einstein didn't invent Relativity but he gets credit for describing it.....
Re:AWS, MongoDB, and the Economic Realities of Open Source by woah on Tuesday January 15, 2019 @09:56AM (#18911486)
He did invent it. Our scientific models are just that: models that can make accurate predictions.
Re:AWS, MongoDB, and the Economic Realities of Open Source by kgwxd on Monday January 14, 2019 @01:39PM (#18905206)
So every discussion involving relativity has to mention Einstein even when it's not germane?
Re:AWS, MongoDB, and the Economic Realities of Open Source by scarface74 on Monday January 14, 2019 @02:06PM (#18905457)
Everyone keeps linking to the Gwem.net website instead of using the primary source.

If Albert Einstein had a blog post about relativity, I would rather read that than someone’s interpretation....

Re:AWS, MongoDB, and the Economic Realities of Open Source by jefftk on Tuesday January 15, 2019 @08:11AM (#18910868)
The Gwern post is better: it starts by linking, quoting, and summarizing the Spolsky post, but then goes on to give many more examples.
Re:AWS, MongoDB, and the Economic Realities of Open Source by db48x on Monday January 14, 2019 @04:11PM (#18906515)
He wrote books about it, have you read them?
Re:AWS, MongoDB, and the Economic Realities of Open Source by scarface74 on Monday January 14, 2019 @04:25PM (#18906652)
Well actually....