Why Atlanta Should Be Your Next Startup HQ - <AUTHOR> http://miter.mit.edu/why-atlanta-should-be-your-next-start-up-hq <comment><USER2> As someone from Atlanta, I can confirm that there is a growing interest in start-ups (or at least at GT there was). My goal after grad school is to start a company; I just don't know in what yet :)

I should mention that it's difficult to characterize all people in Atlanta under one sort of personality type. In my experience, it varies wildly. Atlanta is more of a commuter city where a lot of people from the suburban area surrounding it drive to work each day. Of those who actually live in the city, I believe liberal is more frequent (particularly in the Midtown area), but again, there is a wide variety.

Atlanta has a reputation for crime, but this has actually improved significantly since the Olympics and I don't believe Atlanta is any worse than other big cities now.

There's also a variety of things to do in Atlanta. Some examples including the High Museum of Art and many local jazz clubs. There's also a number of outdoorsy things. Two prominent bike trails (Silver Comet and Freedom/Stone Mountain trail) + a new one they're building through Atlanta called the Beltline.

<comment><USER3> I also live, work, and have grown up in Atlanta. I have to say he gives a realistic and well made argument. I'd personally rather live/work in Atlanta over Austin, but the culture of Atlanta, while improving, is nowhere near the likes of San Fran or NYC.

But there have been many successful start ups through out Atlanta's history, such as Coke, Turner Broadcasting System(CNN/Turner/etc), UPS, and more. All of these were revolutionary start ups at the time, and now are massive corporations. I expect future companies like this to be founded here in Atlanta, because it is essentially the capital of the South East, geographically about a quarter of the country.

What makes me want to move away from Atlanta is the poor city infrastructure, the dependence on suburbs, and the lack of culture. In Atlanta there is possibly less muse than in San Fran or NYC, and the city as a whole can sometimes come across as anti intellectual, which is quite the opposite of most of San Fran and NYC. Beside GA Tech and Emory college students, networking would be relatively small when compared to NYC or San Fran. But for someone who already has their network built out, such as a start up from SF/NYC trying to cut costs, Atlanta could be the place. And it's also ideal for people moving from smaller cities who don't want the large city feel.

If Atlanta had a more walkable and livable environment, it's be quite amazing.

<comment><USER4> It's not "anti-intellectual", it's a refreshing dose of anti-snotty-ism (not typically synonymous with cities containing top research universities).

<comment><USER3> I agree, there is very little snotty-ism compared to other cities. And one would not feel the 'anti-intellectual' nature of the city if working in certain environments, such as GATech, Emory, CDC, ect. Atlanta is a great city, and for many people may be the best, but to compare it to San Fran and NYC, there is still much room for improvement on many areas. GATech is just awesome though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Costs are low enough in Atlanta that you can actually start your business without raising capital. Unthinkable, at least for an extended period of time, in most other cities.

Most businesses shouldn't raise money either because they're not going to grow fast enough to fit the VC model or they're going to dilute the founders so much that the wind gets sucked out of the sails. For example, learn from an Atlantan that just sold his Pardot no-investor-raised-money business for $95 million, [http://davidcummings.org/2010/05/08/when-raising-money- makes...](http://davidcummings.org/2010/05/08/when-raising-money-makes- sense/).

</comment><comment><USER5> Here's the Google cached text-only version:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MPoNN4t...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MPoNN4tv4uYJ:miter.mit.edu/why- atlanta-should-be-your-next-start-up-hq/&hl=en&tbo=d&gl=us&strip=1)

</comment><comment><USER6> I live in Atlanta and work with startups here.

Compared to where it was a few years ago it is doing a lot better.

With that being said it still isn't there yet. All of the points that the author made are valid ones.

The plusses of being in Atlanta: 1\. Costs are generally lower. 2\. There are some good resources for startups if you know where to look. 3\. We have had a few successful exits in this town and we are getting a better tech startup buzz. 4\. You have a major airport hub and can get to anywhere in the country quickly and inexpensively. 5\. We are beginning to get more traction with setting up hackathons and tech focused groups in the town. 6\. There are a few quality companies that have recently come out of flashpoint.

Opportunities for growth: 1\. Atlanta Has not traditionally been a tech focused town. Finance, Marketing, Retail and Media have been it's dominate industries. IT has been more of a support function of those industries. 2\. Atlanta investors are not as savvy as investors from tech hubs like Austin, the Valley and New York which makes it more difficult to raise money locally (a lot of startups have gone to one of those cities to raise money). 3\. The resources in Atlanta do not seem to be as focused on creating tech centered startups as they could be. If you look at the programs offered at the ATDC etc. they tend to be focused on business development, product development, operations (legal things etc.) and marketing. Many of the startup events are filled with non-technical people with no money looking for co-founders for their latest social/gaming/store based app. 4\. The community feels like it needs to gel and circle around the quality startups in town to drive a culture of quality....there are some low quality (me too) startups in town with non- technical founders and no money who have received way too much press/buzz that predictably have or will fail.

Many of the opportunities for growth are not unique to Atlanta. This is probably also indicative of the small number of companies in Crunchbase that are out of Atlanta.

The trajectory is going in the right direction, and if we can reach the critical mass it could be great....so in a way Atlanta is still a startup of startups.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think Atlanta has much to recommend in terms of a startup destination: great access to smart engineers (Georgia Tech is in the city, Duke and UNC are not too far away), low cost of living, quite livable, etc.

However, it's just so tremendously isolated. The closest real city with a real financial/tech sector is Charlotte, but the transit interconnection between the two is very weak and as a result there is very little cultural cross- pollination between the two cities (unlike say DC and New York which are about the same distance apart).

I think Philadelphia is actually a smarter bet. Low cost of living, like Atlanta, Penn and Drexel right in the city, and just 90 minutes on the train to either New York or DC. The amount of cross-pollination in the DC-PHL-NYC corridor is just phenomenal, enhanced by the fact that the three cities have very different cultures and host very different types of industries.

<comment><USER8> Having just moved after 6 years in Philadelphia: very high violent crime, and corrupt local government w/ no interest in technology; rents are lower compared to DC or NYC but raising rapidly. While I loved going to the Philly tech meetups, most everyone was working in the suburbs, where companies are free of the high city corporate tax rate (most cities don't _have_ corporate taxes).

<comment><USER9> Atlanta can probably rival Philly when it comes to violent crime and corrupt institutions.

<comment><USER4> Every city has pockets that are bad and pockets that are safe. Atlanta has tons of safe places.

<comment><USER10> I fatfinger voted on this comment (when I wasn't intending to vote at all). I don't know if it was an upvote or downvote. Whoops! and sorry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Emory University is also in Atlanta. Definitely some smart people there.

</comment><comment><USER12> > Most entrepreneurs rightly consider San Francisco to be the #1 city for > starting a company

Most consumer-tech entrepreneurs with a US passport, maybe.

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra Isn't Atlanta a place with "strong traditions and moral values"? Which is Paul-Graham-speak for "an awful place for innovation"?

<comment><USER13> Is innovation fueled by debauchery?

<comment><USER14> The opposite of "family values" is not "debauchery", despite what religious extremists would have you believe.

<comment><USER15> In fact, they often go hand-in-hand :)

I lived in Lexington, KY for 14 years and I believe we were among America's leaders in churches, strip clubs, and chain restaurants (per capita, that is).

There's a Portland joke somewhere in here...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The Crunchbase numbers of only 21 startups started since 2008 are grossly misstated, even based on Crunchbase data.

I think I personally know 21 companies started AND funded since then in Atlanta. When I search for individual companies, they show up as "Atlanta, GA" and "Founded 8/2010" (for example), but they don't show up in a search.

I'd expect there are probably at least 100 Atlanta companies in Crunchbase founded since January 2008, and probably over 300 companies founded in that time. A possibly unexpected trait of Atlanta is that our companies aren't super-focused on Crunchbase, Angel List, etc, so we probably under-report on most research like this. (Our own fault - Atlanta companies - spend 10 minutes to add your startup to Crunchbase and Angel List).

</comment><comment><USER17> I went to Stanford, but picked Atlanta as the place for my startup. All the cons are true--less capital, difficult to find rockstar talent (particularly technical talent), but so are the pros (cheap, healthier business environment, etc). For me, I'm trying to build a values-based organization, and I think it'd be tough (or impossible) to do so effectively in the Bay Area.

</comment><comment><USER18> Worth mentioning, the ATDC, the Georgia Tech incubator, is actually over 20 years old rather than a new thing as the article implies. They've recently done a lot to improve their handling of early startups, however. Amongst other things, Mindspring went through the ATDC back when they were in their early stages. More interesting things Georgia Tech has done recently include the InVenture Prize (<https://inventureprize.gatech.edu> ) that encourages students to create new inventions. Winners get patent filings and such. Additionally, they recently created Flashpoint (<http://flashpoint.gatech.edu> ), a startup accelerator.

Meanwhile, right next to Georgia Tech campus (in the basement of the Biltmore) has sprung up a space that is rapidly becoming a common spot for entrepreneurs (at least those who live around there), Hypepotamus (<http://www.hypepotamus.com> ). Atlanta Startup Village, a monthly-ish event to let folks share what they're working on, is also held out of Hypepotamus ([http://atlantastartupcommunity.wordpress.com/2012/12/07/atla...](http://atlantastartupcommunity.wordpress.com/2012/12/07/atlanta- startup-village-in-photos/) ).

Culture-wise, Tech itself is on top of Midtown which has plenty of nightlife. Other hotspots include the Old Fourth Ward/Edgewood areas (the sound table, noni's, Church), Virginia Highland (Dark Horse Tavern, Hand in Hand), Buckhead, etc. Old Fourth Ward, Little Five, Edgewood, and other places in Atlanta all have active arts communities (see for example <http://fluxprojects.org> and <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goat_Farm_Arts_Center> ). There are several bars to keep an eye on both up-and-coming and better known bands (for example, Smith's Olde Bar), and ~an hour and 15 minutes away is Athens, which has its own thriving arts and music scenes.

I think the trick with Atlanta is nothing is pervasive—you have to know where to look, and it's not necessarily obvious where to do so. But I think if you know where to look, you'll find there's plenty of culture to be had. The good news is, there are many very smart and motivated people working to increase the visibility of both the culture and the startup community of the city. I think we'll increasingly see the effect of these efforts in the near future (indeed, I think they've already begun to have a clear effect).

</comment><comment><USER19> St. Louis - I recommend St. Louis. Startup culture, associations and opportunities are blowing up.

</comment><comment><USER9> did anybody manage to read this and have a summary of the point?

<comment><USER20> Basically, the article says Atlanta is good because the cost of living is cheaper, there is a lot of smart talent due to the educational institutions, and the city is seeing an increase in both communication and transportation infrastructure.

Downsides mentioned (in comparison to the more popular startup cities) are the lack of startup investment capital, not as many people with an entrepreneurship mentality, both of which lead to a less-active startup culture.

However, I wonder what the effects would be if Atlanta becomes a startup hub on par with NY or San Francisco. I rather like the fact that it's cheaper to live in Atlanta than most big cities.

An increase of capital to the local economy would result in rise in the cost of living, which (I believe) is one of oft-cited reasons for moving there. A 3 bedroom townhouse in a very nice residential area for ~$150k isnt unheard of.

<comment><USER9> Believe me it would take a lot of startups to even make a dent in the amount of available housing at bargain price.

I would be more concerned by the fact that traffic is a nightmare and there is not much hope the state of georgia would ever get their act together and build even a half decent transit infrastructure.

<comment><USER7> Traffic isn't exactly a picnic in Silicon Valley. And on the traffic front, there is a key advantage to living in Atlanta: while it's not possible to live entirely without a car in the city, it's entirely possible to live close to work inside the city, because rents are so cheap. Traffic inside the city itself really isn't that bad--it's traffic in and out of the city from the suburbs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Red state. 'Nuff said.

<comment><USER22> Austin seems to be doing alright.

<comment><USER21> It is? What interesting thing has come out of Austin anytime recently?

<comment><USER23> Guess it depends on definition of interesting and recently.

<http://www.austinemerging100.com/list.php>

HomeAway and BazaarVoice both just had IPOs. Indeed got bought for likely ~1 billion this year too. Phurnace exited to BMC for ~500 million about 2 years ago, Convio IPO that year. Spiceworks and WhaleShark seem like they are doing pretty well.

SocialWare, AppSumo, Uship, UnboundID, Outbox, Mass Relevance, Boundless, BlackLocus, WPEngine, CopperEgg, SailPoint, etc. I'm sure I'm missing tons, but point is there are lots.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A response to Dropping Django - <AUTHOR> http://uswaretech.com/blog/2009/08/a-response-to-dropping-django/

<comment><USER2> The admin not allowing email addresses as usernames still irks me, such a seemingly pointless restriction in this day and age.

Decent response to the original article, though I have to admit that I have a pet peeve about developers declaring libraries/frameworks "insufficient", "lacking" or "fundamentally flawed" as an excuse to write things themselves. Or maybe I'm just grumpy.

</comment><comment><USER3> 'There are a few other questions raised, some of which I agree with("Sadly, it[the admin app] struggles a little bit with nullable fields and is tricky to customize."), and some which I dont, ("I will never write CSS by hand again." - You shouldn't be, someone else on your team should be doing that.)'

Ugh, this is just a totally unrealistic and out-of-touch argument. Look, I work on a website, and it's me and one other guy, and we both have to write frontend and backend code. It's not even remotely reasonable for us to just stop writing frontend stuff and tell our boss to hire someone else to do it. I fully understand why the Django templating language is the way it is, and it even makes sense, but it's not perfect for all situations, one of which is when the user is a big boy and can handle the responsibility of using full- blown python in a template.

<comment><USER4> The implication that designers are not "big boys" is offensive. I will parry with: "big boys" often wield power they don't understand to theirs and everyone else's detriment. More importantly, if all the big boys get hit by a machismo bus who will be around to cook the spaghetti?

<comment><USER5> I think the parent's use of "big boy" was ironic; if someone is patronizing me, I might say "Listen, I'm a big boy, I can handle it." I don't see it as, necessarily, saying I'm in a class above others. Just that I can handle the responsibility someone else thinks I can't.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I wasn't trying to suggest that I'm above designers or anything. In fact, I really respect good designers, because I'm not a great designer and I know how hard it is. However, the article is basically saying "Look, you shouldn't even be writing CSS, you're a coder! Coders code! You should hire someone else to do that!" This just seems a bit naive to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> (I wrote the original Dropping Django post)

I wrote a quick comment at [http://uswaretech.com/blog/2009/08/a-response-to- dropping-dj...](http://uswaretech.com/blog/2009/08/a-response-to-dropping- django/#comment-2093)

Maybe I wasn't clear enough, or maybe this is just guaranteed flame war territory. But I think this comment sums up what I was trying to say better than anything: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=773510>

I'm going to try to write more about our URL routing and authorization soon.

<comment><USER7> I'm not a python or django developer, so I can't comment on the technical merits of what either of you are saying. However, this exchange has left me with a lot of respect for both of you. It's been very polite and professional, and hasn't fallen into the usual vitriol and holy wars.</comment></comment>


Dogs are people, too - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/opinion/sunday/dogs-are-people-too.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0&hp&pagewanted=print

<comment><USER2> This article demonstrates the difficulty of animal science and neurological science. How much can we infer from brain scans from creatures whose ability to communicate with humans is quite limited?

Through my experience as a dog owner (er, dog guardian), I am convinced that dogs experience emotion and are capable of some deductive reasoning. Yet they are generally incapable of comprehending the entire human world around them. It's as if you perpetually have a two-year-old's brain in a furry, four-legged adult's body.

While the author argues that dogs should be treated more like people, e.g., with the freedom to choose what they will or will not do, he fails to note the opposite tack-- that the choices of two-year-olds must be constrained at times for their own safety and well-being and that the behavior of dogs and two- year-olds is modified-- often for their benefit-- through the use of positive and negative reinforcement.

Only if we could gain more thorough understanding of the emotions that dogs experience can we make good decisions of how they best should be treated.</comment>


Show HN: Squzy – open-source monitoring, incident and alert system - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/squzy/squzy <comment><USER2> This looks pretty neat. One thing that would be really cool would be support for event logging of protobuf messages. Some way to provide squizy a protobuf bin file that describes all of my messages or something and then a way to generically send you a bunch of protos and have your api serialzie and allow queries and notifications based on these messages.

One thing we have at work is something that's like this:

        message Event {
            enum type {
                UserLoginFailed login_failed
                SpecificApiRequestMade api_request
                ....
            }
        }

Right now we're turning these protos into json and serializing it into a mongodb for easy queries. This way we can do things like "COUNT(*) GROUPED BY login_failed.username" and find accoutns that are being targeted by bots, for example.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank for feedback, I think we already support that for golang, here example: [https://github.com/squzy/test_tracing](https://github.com/squzy/test_tracing)

That example on dashboard: [https://demo.squzy.app/transactions/Y_jLC4hlwirv0PYqvSVG5](https://demo.squzy.app/transactions/Y_jLC4hlwirv0PYqvSVG5)

<comment><AUTHOR> It is means you can create custom transaction in specific cases, and you can group by them on that page: [https://demo.squzy.app/applications/5eef71dcaac3ab3dc67a4ef3...](https://demo.squzy.app/applications/5eef71dcaac3ab3dc67a4ef3/overview?grouBy=2)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Puh that looks very crude.

The dashboard gives you a very bad overview. Its not even clear with one look what you are looking at.

And then as a kicker, not a timeseries based database.

You should have a look at how prometheus is doing it.

<comment><USER4> Seems a little harsh! Prometheus is a big project thats been around a long time, and I'm not expert in it, but I don't think it's aspiring to do incident notification or APM, is it? I think it's just metrics. Maybe more constructive would be to provide some specific things that were unclear or confusing to you in the overview, and/or to suggest that they integrate with Prometheus for the things it's already excellent at and avoid reinventing them? Dunno, just my $0.02, but they're both go projects and it looks decent at a glance to me, probably just using material I think?

Anyway, I think open source stuff sometimes needs constructive criticism but should always be appreciated first as a contribution to the ecosystem even if you're not personally planning to use it.

<comment><USER5> Prometheus has AlertManager which provides a framework for incident notification (we route incidents to Mattermost and PagerDuty, for example; PD ends up being our big incident response tool, which lets us cascade into a variety of "wake the sysadmin up" methods). It doesn't do APM, but it wouldn't be difficult to expose a Prometheus agent for your APM (just like you'd expose metrics for anything else you want to monitor).

I appreciate new tools, but I do think it's fair to ask what it does better than the existing tools. Prometheus' biggest problem is its learning curve, IMO, so there might be some gains to be made there, but after using it, I think the learning curve is a function of its architecture, which is a large part of what makes it so resilient. If it can be improved while maintaining (or improving on) resilience, awesome, but I personally know that I won't sleep well at night if my monitoring service isn't rock-solid.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Disclaimer for limitation of liability? - <AUTHOR>

I am an independent web application developer and a legal issue has arisen for which I am hoping to gain advice.  I recently developed a database application for a new client and have received signals from them regarding their feeling about my liability for the project.  They have hinted that I should be liable for any problems that might arise with the system (which is being marketed to professionals and contains non-financial, but still sensitive data).  I had already signed a fairly thorough NDA before starting the project, but after I submitted a large invoice, they presented me another document that stated I was to deliver a reliable and accurate system, and that they have full ownership.  This seemed reasonable to me, as I agree that they completely own the system and code.  However, after signing, it was at this point that the client hinted about my liability should a problem arise.  Then, I received confirmation that he is presenting the document which I signed to an attorney to ensure that it is thorough.  My fear is that he basically wants to ensure that he can sue me if something goes wrong with the system.
The portion of the document to which I am referring simply states that I agree to deliver a reliable and accurate system, and does not state anything regarding my actual liability if something were to go wrong with the system.  Also, I did not ask them to sign any disclaimer regarding my limitations of liability.  As we all know, most software, when you agree to install it, includes fairly thorough wording that obviates the software company from any liability that might arise from using the software.  Should this type of agreement, in some form or fashion, be part of a standard contract into which I might enter with a client?  Given the document that I did sign, what recourse could this client have, should there be a problem that arises with the software?  If any additional info is needed to thoroughly answer the question(s), I will do my best to provide it.
Typically, I have a personal and trustworthy relationship with my clients.  I perform honest work and often an actual contract has not been necessary -- I develop code for a client, invoice the client, and then they always promptly remit payment.  This process, which might seem risky to others, has worked well for me in my geography.  However, this situation has made me re-think the process a bit, at least regarding self-protection in terms of liability disclaimers.
Any and all input regarding this situation and/or your past experiences is appreciated. <comment><USER2> As with all legal matters, you should consult a lawyer to obtain proper legal advice. This comment is, of course, not legal advice and shouldn't be relied on as such, but it may help put you on the right path.

Without reading the contracts, knowing where they were signed, etc., a pretty universal general principle is that if you make a promise to your client, you will be liable if you do not live up to that promise. Some of these promises will be expressly in the contract and some of them may be implied by law.

If you agree to deliver a reliable and accurate system (this is essentially a warranty), then if the system fails to meet that, then you do have a liability exposure there. What constitutes a "reliable and accurate system" is open to interpretation and will affect the extent of your liability, but the point is that the door is open.

Instead of disclaiming the giving of any warranties, often contracts will contain a limitation of liability clause, which caps liability. So, while a software developer may warrant that their system will do what they said it will do, if it doesn't, the most a customer can claim back from them is the capped amount. It is common for this to be limited to the amount the customer paid for the software.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great, your comments are very helpful, thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Obligatory disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.

All you need is one bad experience to start requiring a signed contract to start working. I would recommend that this should be the policy of all independent developers: it protects both parties and a clearly written, comprehensive contract can help to prevent tension between you and your clients.

As far as your liability question, as I am not a lawyer I have no idea if the document you signed puts you in legal jeopardy.

However, if you are concerned, you should talk to an insurance agent -- when I signed up for my personal umbrella policy, my agent mentioned that she could set me up with business insurance to cover me for work-related negligence lawsuits (or something like that). Might be worth looking into.

Finally, I always have some warranty/liability/damages boilerplate in my contracts. Feel free to use mine in the future (<https://gist.github.com/8d1d43bd543e7d6b97de>), but I can't attest to its legal durability as, of course, I'm not a lawyer.

Edits: made disclaimer more explicit.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ahh, very nice, thank you for the boilerplate liability disclaimer and other advice -- will use the liability wording as an excellent starting point for a standard contract to use with future projects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Do you have professional indemnity insurance? It's an absolute must.

<comment><AUTHOR> This makes sense, thanks. No, I do not have it, but I am going to look into it.

May I ask how much you pay for yours, and what kind of coverage does it provide? Just looking for some type of baseline. Any recommendations on insurance companies to research?</comment></comment>


Show HN: Keygen Dist – dead-simple software distribution and auto-update service - <AUTHOR> https://keygen.sh/distribution/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN! I'm the founder of Keygen. I just recently launched Keygen Dist, a software distribution API, to go along with Keygen's flagship software licensing API that I posted awhile back whenever I launched [0]. Dist is compatible with auto-update frameworks such as Squirrel.Mac, Squirrel.Windows, and works great for WordPress plugin and theme updates, distributing a paid Node package, a paid Rubygem, Composer package, etc.

Open to answer any questions you all have and would love to chat if anybody is interested in the service. I have a few coupon codes waiting too. :)

[0]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14538351](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14538351)

<comment><USER2> Questions..

Is this a white-label service, in that any URLs used within product can point to our own domains?

Regarding product lock-in:

1) Are future pricing changes tied to specific already-released versions of products?

Example: Customer installs version 1.5 of software. Licenses are validated every week or two. Service pricing changes, vendor comes up with some other solution but it takes 3-6 months for customers to move from 1.5 to the new 1.6 version of product without Keygen in it. Does the software vendor then have a choice between breaking license checks for existing installed customers or paying the arbitrary rate increase until they can get all customers updated?

2) Assuming vendor can whitelabel and provide their own URLs (maintaining control of them), if a transition off of Keygen is necessary, would you have any issue with your former customers (vendors) using an API mock that provides identical response to avoid breaking their own existing customer installs?

Example: whitelabel license check API goes to vendor website, who passes through to Keygen and returns response back to software. Vendor stops using Keygen, replaces the pass-through to provide an API mock. Existing software license checks continue to validate without requiring a software update to prevent the license check from failing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the questions! So I'm currently working on making both the licensing and distribution APIs support whitelabeling via a CNAME DNS record, but at the moment, no, it's not supported. You can set up a proxy server in front of either API with your own domain (similar to how you would integrate e.g. AWS S3 behind your own domain using their API), but that's about it for now.

And for your other questions:

1) I'm not sure I'm understanding you 100%, sorry. But it seems like you're asking about pricing changes for Keygen itself? I don't plan on hiking up prices on customers without due notice (even then, all past pricing changes have grandfathered in current customers' plans), and if they decided to part ways with Keygen because of a pricing change (e.g., maybe their volume doubled and I ask them to upgrade to a larger plan to support the additional traffic) I'd be more than happy to help them with a transition plan so that their customers don't suffer, but that would of course be on a case-by-case basis. Is that what you meant?

2) No, I don't think I would have an issue with a vendor mocking my API endpoints to make sure their software continues to function. Better yet, they could purchase an on-premise install and run the APIs themselves via Docker, and even purchase an additional license to modify the on-premise server's code to meet their needs.

Vendor lock-in sucks, so thanks for asking these questions. I'd be happy to hear suggestions you may have on how I could better deal with the vendor lock- in fears a lot of companies seem to have when integrating third-party APIs (understandably so).

<comment><USER2> Thanks. For 1, yes, it was mainly about pricing changes. Once you're embedded in software it's pretty much a commitment for the lifetime of that version of the product, at least. If upgrade cycle is, say, 6 months, then month-by-month pricing has potential to turn into a hostage situation. EG, plan can change from $200 to $2000 per month and vendors are forced to either accept it until their customers upgrade, break installs, or come up with some other solution.

But, I think from the other responses, this is an avoidable scenario. Thanks for the information.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Startup Idea: Solving the problem of LOST/OLD/STALE Phone Numbers. - <AUTHOR> http://www.getr.co/startup-ideas/solvingtheproblemoflostoldphonenumbers

<comment><USER2> There were a few solutions which used the online repository address books and shared address books.</comment>


TestFlight Android: End of Life 3/20/14 - <AUTHOR> http://testflightapp.com/android

<comment><USER2> As a better alternative, we are providing DeployGate. If you get bothered by people who asks you to install the app you are working on in person, DeployGate is there for you.

Plus, DeployGate has just released a beta program supporting iOS apps yesterday and it's free if you get started now. =)

[https://deploygate.com/beta_program](https://deploygate.com/beta_program)

</comment><comment><USER3> Anyone else know why they're shutting it down for Android?</comment>


The Gasher is a hasher built on a fuzzer implemented as a genetic algorithm - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/pvdz/gasher <comment> em-bee the gasher is a hasher on a fuzzer with a buzzer.

the hasher is genetic, but its namechoice is pathetic.

if numbers are set, and the inputs are met,

the formulas are found, on a table they bound,

with webworkers, on computers...

</comment><comment><USER2> Unfortunate name choice [1]

[1] [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=gash](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=gash)

<comment><USER3> This is like saying Richard is an unfortunate name, because some people call their phallus that. If gash is profane, how do you feel about the words valley, doorway, gatehouse, shaft, cabin in the woods? The store GAP?

Definition of gash in a regular dictionary:

tr.v. gashed, gash·ing, gash·es

To make a long deep cut in; slash deeply.

n.

1\. A long deep cut.

2\. A deep flesh wound.

[1540–50; alter. (with -sh perhaps from slash1) of Middle English garsen < Old French garser, jarsier to scarify, wound < Vulgar Latin *charaxāre < Greek charássein to scratch, notch]

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The demo seems to be missing. I get a 404 on the link.

<comment><USER5> Try this: [https://pvdz.github.io/gasher/web.html](https://pvdz.github.io/gasher/web.html)</comment></comment>