HTTPS as a ranking signal - <AUTHOR> http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2014/08/https-as-ranking-signal.html

<comment><USER2> Great news IMHO. It seems like many webmasters needed a push in the right direction, beyond "its the right thing to do".

Now if only we could address the CA trust/cost problem...

</comment><comment><USER3> I get a free SSL cert, right?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is my main sticking point; for a lot of simple blog-style sites (especially for nonprofits, etc.), not only acquiring a CA-signed certificate, but then _maintaining_ that certificate, renewing it, installing it on a host... these things all need to be made much more easy/simple before HTTPS everywhere can become a reality.</comment></comment>


Chrome extension "Awesome Screenshot" messes with Google search results - <AUTHOR> http://www.seroundtable.com/google-amazon-treatment-13881.html

<comment><USER2> Btw. if somebody's looking for a good screenshot application that automatically creates a URL when you take a screenshot, I can't recommend this software enough: <http://getcloudapp.com/>

You can also drag files onto the icon and all kinds of stuff - there's also a keyboard shortcut to upload the contents of the clipboard to a URL.

Works well and is available on all platforms.

Edit: (ouch, harsh down-votes) Sorry, not all platforms, only OSX and Windows (AFAIK). The windows version was built by a third party on top of their API and works exactly the same way: <http://fluffyapp.com/> \- I use both versions daily and I'm addicted.

Re-edit:

\- a beta linux client: [http://abhinandh.com/post/2755166494/cloudapp-for- linux-and-...](http://abhinandh.com/post/2755166494/cloudapp-for-linux-and- windows-py-cloudapp)

\- ipad and iphone clients: <http://bluenubeapp.com/> & <http://cloud2goapp.com/>

\- android client: [http://android.appstorm.net/reviews/utilities/share- easily-w...](http://android.appstorm.net/reviews/utilities/share-easily-with- droidcloud/)

\- wordpress plugin: <http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-cloudapp/>

<comment><USER3> Works on all Mac platforms.

<comment><USER2> There is a pc version built on their API that works exactly the same way: <http://fluffyapp.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Though only really useful to those who can read code/program themselves, I find the "Extension Gallery and Web Store Inspector" extension to be useful for this kind of thing. It gives you an omnibar icon when you're viewing an extension in the Chrome Web Store/Extension gallery which let's you view the actual permissions the extension is requesting, a list of Chrome API calls it makes and you can also go in and view the actual code of the extension. I tend to do this before installing any extension.

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bbamfloeabgknfklmg...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bbamfloeabgknfklmgbpjcgofcokhpia)

</comment><comment><USER5> Hi All, This is Joel, developer of awesome screenshot. I am so sorry to add the amazon search result in google search result page without info our users first. It's such a bad decision.

This additional features was designed to scratch our own itch. Because when I search some shopping items in google, I always want to check them in amazon at the same time.

In the spirit of transparency, we should disclose that this feature does bring small amount of revenue to us, which enables us to continue to improve this product.

Since so many users don't like it, we already updated a new version(3.2.1) to remove this feature.

<comment><USER6> Good of you to come out and apologise for it (and remove the hidden feature), but this kind of fails the plausible deniability test...

"I mistakenly added a feature that would show our referral links to half a million users in their search results" isn't really believable.

<comment><USER5> The intension is to make a small mount of money from the referral links while it still helps some users. However, I did it in a wrong way. Maybe we should did it like this: 1) Disable it by default. 2) Ask user's permission to enable it 3) Tell users why we add it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This article fails to mention that the result-tampering is provided as a default-enabled option.

Here is a screenshot: <http://imgur.com/7C5oM>

<comment><USER8> With an option like this clearly visible, might this be an acceptable way to make money with a Chrome extension? There certainly don't seem to be many options available for developers, apart from the other highly annoying way of periodically throwing the user to a "your extension has been updated!" page with ads on it.

<comment><USER9> Would've been absolutely fine if it were:

1\. Disabled by default 2\. Publicized properly (and not sneaked in)

<comment><USER10> Not in my opinion. I think you owe the user a clear indication about that it is an add, and from who the add comes. Just modifying pages like that is malware behavior.

If they clearly tell me it's their add then I can chose if I want the extension or not, so removable adds is less of an issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Just in case anyone's looking for an alternative, you can try the similiar Screen Capture by Google: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cpngackimfmofbokmj...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cpngackimfmofbokmjmljamhdncknpmg)

</comment><comment><USER9> We used this everyday at work, but it's gone now.

But, I wonder how many people will actually notice this and remove it. Unless this creates a huge storm, I don't know how many of it's supposed half a million users will care.

<comment><AUTHOR> And I actually was about to spread the good word about this extension to my coworkers because this extension is very useful compared to other screenshot tools because it can capture the whole page instead just the screen area.

<comment><USER12> Webpage Screenshot does full-page captures, in case you're looking for a replacement.

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ckibcdccnfeookdmba...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ckibcdccnfeookdmbahgiakhnjcddpki)

<comment><USER13> Sorry, but 'Webpage Screenshot' is a _terrible_ implementation (it doesn't even have a save-button!).

If you want to recommend an alternative then why not point to google's own: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cpngackimfmofbokmj...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cpngackimfmofbokmjmljamhdncknpmg)

<comment><USER12> I didn't know an official Google extension existed for this, until I scrolled further down the thread!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm guessing they added an affiliate tag to all the Amazon links so they could make some money from it, wonder how successful it has been. Is it a popular extension?

<comment><AUTHOR> Very popular. It's got 422,340 users and 12,925 of 5 star ratings.

Here is the link to the extension:

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/alelhddbbhepgpmgid...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/alelhddbbhepgpmgidjdcjakblofbmce)

And apparently there is a corresponding Firefox addon as well, which has 166,107 users. So in total I presume there are over 1/2 million users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Acc. to this article ([http://blog.arpitnext.com/2010/08/googles-reply-on- chrome-ex...](http://blog.arpitnext.com/2010/08/googles-reply-on-chrome- extension-developer-fee.html)), Google does not review add-ons by third-party devs _at all_.

Which makes me think we shouldn't be installing any of them.

</comment><comment><USER16> They probably could have got away with it if they'd just added their affiliate code to Amazon links that showed up organically, they just got greedy.

<comment><USER17> That would probably be in breach of Amazon's affiliate policies though, IIRC editing other peoples links (replacing codes, or adding yours to a link that has no affiliate code) is frowned upon and a reasons to have your account closed.

As this is providing extra links rather than changing existing ones, it shouldn't be against Amazon's rules.

I'll no doubt irritate Google though as it could affect their ad revenue. I wonder if it would be possible to detect this sort of thing: implementing some sort of checksum on the content they send out and checking it with client-side script to tell the user that the page had been modified. It would flag up changes some users are expecting (from deliberately written/installed add-ons or greasemnokey scripts, and would not be able to identify the source of the change, so it wouldn't be perfect. And of course add-ins changing the page could just remove the checking code - but that would be a nice big red sign to say _never trust a line of code released by this company/person again_ and would be an arms race (though Google probably has the resources to keep the upper hand in that).

<comment><USER18> viglink provides an API that automatically adds affiliate links to your page or software product and it supports Amazon

<comment><USER17> That is adding your affiliate code to _your_ links to Amazon, not links created by anyone else, so should be in accordance with the rules.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Do people really install an extension with the fabolous name of "Awesome Screenshot"? It already sounds like spam and/or at least trojan software.

Edit: This post is not trolling. I really often got the recommendation to install that plugin but always didn't because I already thought it can't be good, after reading the name and surfing the web for some years. I mean everybody here knows spam emails and these trojans many people had on their machinese 10 years ago, right?</comment>


How Hampton Creek sold investors on fake mayo - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-hampton-creek-just-mayo/? <comment><USER2> _Hampton Creek had a huge cost advantage, the company said in a pitch deck provided to potential investors. Its plant-based egg equivalent cost about half as much as a real egg. In the case of Just Mayo, that meant Hampton Creek could easily undercut Unilever's Hellmann's and Best Foods brands and grab a significant share of the $2 billion U.S. mayonnaise market._

Does this ring false to anyone else? Are Hellman's costs dominated by their industrial inputs? Also: famously, you can make a _cubic shitload_ of mayonnaise from a single egg (I'll find the Cooking Issues cite somewhere). Commercial mayonnaise is almost entirely oil and gets its flavor mostly from acid, salt, and sugar, not from the egg. Does halving the cost of those eggs really give a competitor that much of an edge?

<comment><USER3> This was my thought exactly. In America very little of the big name mayo uses egg as a primary ingredient.

I can see how JustMayo could be a category winner for the whole foods niche tho and that could be really profitable.

<comment><USER4> > In America very little of the big name mayo uses egg as a primary > ingredient.

Egg is a very small part of mayonnaise if you buy a large American brand or if you make it yourself at home. It's mostly oil.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > As buybacks surged in 2014, Hampton Creek expensed about $1.4 million under > this unusual category over five months, compared with $1.9 million of net > sales in the period.

Hmm.....

I actually had to take a course in business ethics and the first rule we were taught was, if you wouldn't feel comfortable getting on the phone and telling your share holders what you are doing then its probably wrong.

> Javier Colón was an operations manager at Hampton Creek from 2012 until > Tetrick fired him in 2013. They sparred, Colón says, over Tetrick's attempts > to change some employment contracts without the workers' consent

If you've ever been responsible for a Pnl unit, much less an entire company, then you'll understand the crushing pressure you are under to make numbers. Sooner or later you'll have to decide if committing outright fraud is worth it.

I'm guessing that the management had good intentions when they started out. And the fraud started small, just buy a few cases to juice the quarters numbers, and it slowly spirals out of control.

Once you compromise your ethics, its hard to put hte genie back in the bottle.

</comment><comment><USER6> From the image at the front of Josh Tetrick with mayo on his face, this seems like a hit piece designed more to take down Josh and Hampton Creek than to inform the public. There are legitimate conversations to be had about how Hampton Creek runs its business, but this piece doesn't sit well with me.

<comment><USER7> If you prefer, the investigation follows a much more staid article[1] from early August that reveals the company hired a network of contractors to secretly buy back their own product from stores.

[1]: [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-04/food- start...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-04/food-startup-ran- undercover-project-to-buy-up-its-own-products)

<comment><USER8> tl;dr - That sounds of dubious legality, or at least _ethics_.

> "Expense reports reviewed by Bloomberg show contractors bought back jars of > Just Mayo from Safeway stores. Former workers say Hampton Creek also > purchased its own products at Kroger, Costco, Walmart, Target, and Whole > Foods locations across the country."

> "We need you in Safeway buying Just Mayo and our new flavored mayos," > Caroline Love, Hampton Creek's then director of corporate partnership, ... > "...This will ensure we stay on the shelf to put an end to Hellmann's > factory-farmed egg mayo, and spread the word to customers that Just Mayo is > their new preferred brand. :)"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Isn't this the company that was also being investigated because their product isn't technically mayo?

<comment><USER10> The FDA regulates what gets to be called "mayonaise", and the investigation was about whether they were allowed to use the word "mayo" for something that didn't have egg in it. They settled by putting "egg-free" on the front label in reasonably large text.

<comment><USER9> I think that's fair, but I remember the stump piece that was trying to paint the FDA as obstructionist, it felt very dishonest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wow! This is incredible stuff. As a vegan I was incredibly surprised to see just mayo appear in mainstream grocery stores in my area.

This also might explain the post's I've seen on r/vegan of just mayo products discounted to 50% - 75%

<comment><USER2> If you have a stick blender (which you should have, because they are cheap and useful), mayonnaise is incredibly easy to make. Vegan mayonnaise isn't much more difficult: soy milk works as an emulsifier, and can be boosted with a little dijon (which I put in normal mayo anyways, because it's good).

I'll use Kewpie mayo for things that want it, but otherwise: store bought mayo is kind of gross, isn't it?

<comment><USER11> I don't actually use it, just have my finger on the pulse of the vegan processed food scene, but thanks for the tip!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What on earth is it with oil related foodstuffs that seems to always inspire such fraud? Remember [http://www.businessinsider.com/the-great-salad-oil- scandal-o...](http://www.businessinsider.com/the-great-salad-oil-scandal- of-1963-2013-11) ?

</comment><comment><USER13> I find that unsurprising given that you have been accused of similar tactics in the past and have also had a scathing "hit piece" written about you as well.[1]

[1] [https://newrepublic.com/article/119350/amicus-app-how- tech-i...](https://newrepublic.com/article/119350/amicus-app-how-tech- investors-are-failing-due-diligence)

<comment><USER14> Making personal attacks from throwaway accounts is not what this site is for. We detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12557164](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12557164) and marked it off-topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> "Business ethics" means "keep the shareholders happy"? This explains so much...

<comment><USER2> No, that's not what he said. In fact, a pretty good rule of thumb regarding the principle of charity on message boards: if you have to write "X means Y? That explains so much.", there's a good chance you're being pointlessly uncharitable.

<comment><USER15> Eh, if you say so. Determining "the shareholders" to be the ultimate authority, the fear of whose disapproval drives you to not make "bad" decisions (which, the comment elaborates, eventually means committing fraud to "juice the quarters numbers"; to whom are these numbers being eventually presented, to delight or disappointment?).

But upon further reflection upon our interaction, you must be right. Thanks for sharing your experience.

<comment><USER2> No, he was implying that the reaction of shareholders is an _acid test_ of ethics: that if you can't even tell your shareholders about something iffy, it's very unlikely that it's ethical. But he didn't say or imply that the opinion of shareholders completely disposed of the question.

<comment><USER15> >But he didn't [...] imply that the opinion of shareholders completely disposed of the question

Quite so! What he said was 'their having committed fraud to bump up the numbers, y'know, as you do, was to please shareholders at quarterly meetings'.

"Business ethics", at this level, revolves around the shareholders, and the comment telegraphs this: as you say, shareholder reaction is the acid test for appropriate behaviour. Nor, indeed, does the opinion of shareholders dispose of the question. Yet, it is fear of shareholder disapproval that drives both the cover-up of fraud (potential jailtime probably helps with this) _and_ the instantiation of said fraud in order to keep numbers up in order to placate shareholders.

But, again, you're right. I'll keep my original comment up, but I should have put ""Business ethics" is all about shareholders, eh? This explains so much...".

<comment><USER16> >Quite so! What he said was 'their having committed fraud to bump up the numbers, y'know, as you do, was to please shareholders at quarterly meetings'."

Check the thread history, he said exactly the opposite:

> > > if you wouldn't feel comfortable getting on the phone and telling your > share holders what you are doing then its probably wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> To me its just a shady way to do growth hacking.

I have family members with an egg allergy, so I am grateful that they were able to get the word out on this product.

<comment><USER4> > To me its just a shady way to do growth hacking.

Or in other words, fraud.

<comment><USER18> Every messaging board (ala Reddit), and Dating site (ala plenty of fish) I know of.. started with some founders "seeding the pool". To me it kind of makes sense, as you can't just open an empty 2 way marketplace and hope that it all works out. Ideally in the reddit way, there were actual discussions going on (except between 3 people not the 100 the usernames would success). Is this also fraud, or just the fact of starting a 2 way marketplace?

Now for this story.. I cannot see a way to justify counting most of your sales as things you bought yourself. That sounds like a not valid way to do business, and I would be very surprised if it were legal to report those as sales.

<comment><USER19> > Ideally in the reddit way, there were actual discussions going on (except > between 3 people not the 100 the usernames would success).

Comments weren't in the initial release of reddit, and wouldn't be added until the end of 2005^1. In the stories I've heard, the usernames were just for submitting stories, and the site was getting enough submissions on its own by the time comments were added.

[1] December 12, 2005. [https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/17913/reddit_no...](https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/17913/reddit_now_supports_comments/c51). Reddit's first post was in June: [https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/87/the_downing_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/87/the_downing_street_memo/) .</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Insurance companies don't ask about gun ownership, U-M researcher asks why - <AUTHOR> https://news.umich.edu/insurance-companies-dont-ask-about-gun-ownership-u-m-researcher-asks-why/ <comment><USER2> Insurance companies also don't ask about other perils like eating manufactured "foods" and all the things laced high fructose corn syrup, or not getting enough sleep on a regular basis, or being the type of person who is stressed out all the time, and so on.

If insurance companies ask about gun ownership as part of responsible risk quantification they also need to understand gun safety controls like gun safes, trigger locks, etc. Also does the owner of said firearm have training and experience like serving this fine country in the MIL?

What about looking at the risk reductions gun ownership can afford an owner in some cases such as mitigating a violent home invasion. I have a friend who prevented imminent harm to himself and family including children just by signaling a weapon draw in an outnumber and cornered situation on his property in broad day light. Problem is those situations are not captured in statistics so thus are difficult or impossible to qualify empirically, unlike dead or wounded who are very countable.

The tone of this professor's article feels like a back door gun control by economic penalty (own a gun well you pay more because stats show guns kill people). Only downsides are discussed in any detail. Professor shouldn't a competent risk analysis properly consider both increases and decreases in risk?

You know what insurance companies should also spend some money and effort on? Researching why far far too many vets commit suicide. Stats show 30 vets per 100,000 population commit suicide vs only 14 per 100,000 in the civilian population.

</comment><comment><USER3> The title was disappointing: the researcher might well want to know why insurance companies don't ask about gun ownership, but if the companies answered, it's not the article.

What the article does do is present a survey of what the known data shows, and compares it to other risks that are asked about (e.g., scuba diving),and demonstrating that on it's face, gun ownership is higher risk.</comment>


Southwest flight skids off end of runway at Burbank Airport - <AUTHOR> https://abc7.com/southwest-flight-skids-off-end-of-runway-at-burbank-airport/4846973/ <comment><AUTHOR> "It ended up in an area called the Engineered Material Arresting System (EMAS).

EMAS is a safety system designed to stop planes if they go off the end of a runway, according to the FAA. Wheels from a plane sink into soft material to stop it."

No one injured. I wasn't onboard but this is the route I routinely fly between Burbank and Oakland.</comment>


Homebrew Cray-1A - <AUTHOR> http://www.chrisfenton.com/homebrew-cray-1a/ <comment><USER2> Some previous discussion, including comments from Chris Fenton: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8447518](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8447518)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6291515](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6291515)

<comment><AUTHOR> Fantastic - thank you. I hadn't realised Chris Fenton had commented.</comment></comment>


DOJ Misfires on Jobs Email in Apple E-Book Case — It Was a Discarded Draft - <AUTHOR> http://allthingsd.com/20130612/doj-misfires-on-jobs-email-in-apple-e-book-case-it-was-a-discarded-draft/

<comment><USER2> Why would you have to produce an unsent draft in discovery? Are employee's personal notes and diaries really subject to this?

Why would subsequently deleted and unsent drafts even be in your data retention policy?</comment>


6 Reasons to Use Push Notifications for Websites - <AUTHOR> https://pushcrew.com/blog/website-push-notifications-why-how-metrics/ <comment><USER2> Having problems in making your customers stay? Retain them with a simple yet effective customer engagement tool. Solve helpdesk tickets, support your customers through LiveChat, send them customized emails, notifications and much more, all for free!

Explore Interakt Notifications App [http://interakt.co/apps/notifications](http://interakt.co/apps/notifications)

Send smart notifications that convert Send notifications to increase revenue Create notifications with ease Announce better Review,analyze and optimize

Push Notifications can enhance overall customer experience and surely very beneficial to engage more with your customers.</comment>


U.S. Clash with Apple Was Months in the Making - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-clash-with-apple-was-months-in-the-making-1455849899 <comment><USER2> This appears to be a paywalled link. Is that appropriate on this site? Is everyone expected to subscribed to WSJ?

<comment><USER3> Yes, click "web"</comment></comment>


EBay dumps Marathon for Aurora - <AUTHOR> https://reviews.apache.org/r/30710/

<comment><USER2> Aurora looks like an extremely advanced PaaS build for Mesos. There are certainly things Marathon works well for that would be overkill if done with Aurora. Will be interesting to see community adoption further evolve Aurora.

</comment><comment><USER3> The "Frameworks stopped receiving offers after a while" bug is concerning, I wonder when it will be fixed.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I find it interesting that they find Aurora to be more stable and powerful than Marathon.</comment>


Ask HN: How can startups ask large companies for non-API data access? - <AUTHOR> We are building an online identity verification platform that uses dynamic KBA and so would need some non-public data from MNOs, banks etc. We don't know how best to approach them.<p>Do we have to reveal our whole business case? Who in the company do we approach? What kind of advice would you give to us? How can we increase our chances of getting a positive answer? Should we incentivize and offer them something? What could we possibly offer them? <comment><USER2> To put it succinctly, your hosed. There is no way this will pan out for you by trying to pry identity data out of banks, larger credit bureaus, etc.

Find a smaller credit bureau that actually wants to work with you, and pull a couple other data sources in (from CNAM/HLR data to jankyCID like callername.com).

Relying on the same trodden datasets while dealing with goliaths that are actually just wholesaling the data from a bunch of other smaller providers is a quick way to spend a lot of time and money on nothing. They will delay, charge and be a pain to work with, no joy to be had.</comment>


Context driven scheme - <AUTHOR> http://paste.lisp.org/display/87283 I just wrote some imaginary code from the top of my head. The goal was to match my mental model of the real world. Comments and questions are welcome. <comment><AUTHOR> This conceptual architecture borrows much from DCI. But my take on context driven code makes more sense in my head than a pure DCI would..</comment>


How to force disgruntled worker not to publicly disclose "GPL'ed code" - <AUTHOR> https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/147134/how-to-force-disgruntled-worker-not-to-publicly-disclose-gpled-code <comment><USER2> First off, completely disregarding the legal status of this, it is both hilarious and encouraging to see this. Why? Because people too often seem to forget that companies you work for actively are likely trying to minimize how much you get from them, regardless of the value you give them. In this situation, Francis is a key employee on the team (the poster says as much), yet he has office politics torpedo a promotion. As far as the company training goes, Francis is doing everything wrong. As far as how you should behave towards a company that does not respect you or anywhere near your value, he's doing a good job playing the cards he has.

I have no empathy for bad company policies or politics. In this situation, a good response would have been for HR to tell Francis how valuable they think he is to the company and that they were going to push through a different path for the promotion, and then to actually do it. Francis likely would not be acting this way without an obvious pattern of disrespect in the culture, and a feeling of being used by the company. If he sees the company (HR) show how much they value him and fight for him to be compensated more because of that, he would likely back off his defensive and combative stance.

</comment><comment><USER3> Some context that isn't immediately clear: this company is selling a compiled version of the Linux kernel in some way. They are required to disclose their source code if asked and make it clear their code is GPL'ed. They are in violation of the GPL, since they are not doing that.

<comment><USER4> Only to their customers, not to the world. But most likely they are in violation.

<comment><USER5> The GPL license allows the customers to hand it over to the rest of the world. I think this is overblown unless the code is containing secrets like API or private keys but then they only have themselves to blame for disregarding security.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There is at least two entangled issues there, the first one is a human resource issue, and the second one is a legal issue.

I got the feeling the person asking the question does not really understand what GPL entails.

We lack some context but I am not sure that actually releasing the modified source code _to their customer_ might sink the company. Likely a customer is buying a device or some code but also some expertise and support for future version, some client might try to use the modified version, but I am not sure this would be the majority of the cases in the real world.

</comment><comment><USER7> Is it just what gets linked here or does "disgruntled" in an employer role question on Stack Overflow usually mean "I am about to be ripped a new one for entirely predictable reasons I failed to notice?".

<comment><USER8> Calling an employee "disgruntled" is one of those words like calling an ex "jilted". It's an attempt by a speaker to get you to side against the subject of the story they're about to tell, even though the story will likely make you side with the subject. When it's obvious that an employee/ex is acting rash or unreasonable, the adjective is superfluous and left out.

<comment><USER9> To be fair, describing the employee in the post as disgruntled doesn't seem entirely unfair. I wouldn't be surprised at all if he is displeased and discontented.

That said it's probably unnecessary to pre-label, they can let people come to their own conclusions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The GPL has been enforced by the FSF / Eben Moglen repeatedly and even defended in court by other companies (1)(2).

To quote Moglen:

> Despite the FUD, as a copyright license the GPL is absolutely solid. That's > why I've been able to enforce it dozens of times over nearly ten years, > without ever going to court. [...]

[http://moglen.law.columbia.edu/publications/lu-12.pdf](http://moglen.law.columbia.edu/publications/lu-12.pdf) PDF

The claim however has to come from the copyright owner, not a third party that attempts vigilante-style justice like the disgruntled employee.

The employee should signal the license breach to the original authors.

\----

1\. [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/02/27/gpl_enforcement_goe...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/02/27/gpl_enforcement_goes_to_court/)

2\. [https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/news/first-us- lawsuit-...](https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/news/first-us-lawsuit-to- test-gpl-open-source-licence)

<comment><USER11> Exactly this. Francis would be deeply in the wrong in any court in the US (and, I presume, Canada) for unilaterally publishing their source code, even if required by the GPL. They can be forced to do so, but only by the courts.

As for HR, they really should have handled this very differently. Ling should have been fired along with Lee for disclosing his veto to Lee, who then bragged about it. Francis should have been given the promotion he earned.

If I were in their shoes now, I'd give him the severance package he wants unless he quits on his own—involutary termination of any sort should trigger the package.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If I was Francis I'd be so pissed off. The company fucked him over and now thinks he is out of line for demanding compensation.

</comment><comment><USER13> Seems like they have bigger problem than solving situation with their employees:

> We are selling a product with a "custom linux kernel installed". Our > engineers say that "most of the product is GPL code we've modified", and > that since we are selling a product with this software in place, "we're > shipping GPL'ed code"

</comment><comment><USER14> It's my understanding that non-competes have no teeth in Canada — in the software industry at least. Is there some except for comp/electrical/mechanical engineers as may be employed at this company?

<comment><USER15> Correct. "These are generally only upheld in exceptional cases." ===[https://www.canadaemploymenthumanrightslaw.com/2018/02/emplo...](https://www.canadaemploymenthumanrightslaw.com/2018/02/employees- non-compete-agreement-enforceable/)

Does not stop employers from trying...and most employees do not challenge it.

<comment><USER16> Worth noting that employers can still try to enforce it via sending nasty- grams to your new employer, which can definitely cause you _significant_ issues if your new employer isn't willing to take on the risk of being involved in a non-compete lawsuit on your behalf.

<comment> em-bee how would they get involved?

if the non-compete is invalid, and the new emoloyer gives me trouble because of it, can't i also go after the new employer for that?

i mean, making non-competes invalid should protect me from that, otherwise it would still reduce my chances to get a job

<comment><USER15> Still requires you to take an active role in defending yourself,and some employers may not want the hassle.

<comment> em-bee they can't avoid the hassle. if they terminate me they'll face a wrong termination lawsuit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Francis shouldn't have negotiated. He should have immediately walked and then exposed his former employees. You just don't tolerate this sort of exploitation unless you approve of management taking advantage of workers.

</comment><comment><USER18> Extremely based, I hope this Francis character shares the code

</comment><comment><USER19> It looks like the manager was right and Francis wasn't "mature enough" for that promotion.

One thing companies overlook is employee loyalty. In hindsight, they should have gotten rid of Francis and kept Lee.

Now they lost 2 engineers and maybe even the manager.

<comment><USER20> > One thing companies overlook is employee loyalty.

Loyalty? Why would anyone have loyalty to a company unless the company has shown significant loyalty to them first? And how would a company show loyalty? I don't mean your team or manager covering for you when something comes up or things like that. That should engender loyalty to those people. That is different from loyalty to the company. I might go further and say that loyalty to a company is wrongheaded. Loyalty to mission or ideal, sure. Loyalty to people. Loyalty to the function in society that needs to be fulfilled in order for society to work (garbage has to be picked up, sewers have to function).

But a company? It's an exchange of my time acting in their interests for their money. A legal abstraction and corresponding rituals that we use in our society as a unit of organization. It's like being loyal to your filing system.

And after the nonsense Francis dealt with, it's hard to imagine why he would feel loyalty to anyone involved in the direction and management of the company. He probably should have chosen his coworkers that he used for references more carefully, too.

<comment><USER21> _Loyalty? Why would anyone have loyalty to a company unless the company has shown significant loyalty to them first?_

Loyalty to a company goes hand in glove with equity participation.</comment></comment></comment>


Gaza: The Hamas Terror Group's Quadcopters - bra-ket http://i-hls.com/2014/03/gaza-hamas-terror-groups-quadcopters/

<comment><AUTHOR> So that's what Hamas spent the humanitarian aid money on. That and tunnels and a few rockets apparently.</comment>


Show HN: InstaClerk – Instagram on Autopilot - <AUTHOR> http://instaclerk.co <comment><USER2> Charging money for ToS-violating, potentially CFAA-violating spam.

</comment><comment><USER3> Where is the corporate entity based? Do you plan to ignore any cease and desists from Facebook? Or are you going to fight them in court?

</comment><comment><USER4> Isn't this the same service as Instagress, which got taken (shut) down?</comment>


Microsoft Makes Moves To Protect Customers From Government Eyes - <AUTHOR> http://www.securityweek.com/microsoft-makes-big-moves-protect-customers-government-eyes

<comment><USER2> Has anyone coined 'crypto theater' yet? Telling us you use SSL between web requests is nice and all, but if various government agencies have PRISM-like access to unencrypted data then you're really not protecting anyone. I imagine all these recent "we're using stronger keys and ssl now" PR stunts are to keep foreign customers happy and to help kill the Snowden story.

<comment><USER3> Dropbox. They use stronger than usual language to assure you that nobody can ever read your data. Unless there's a "glitch" that lets anyone login with no password at all.

<comment><USER4> Bug-based backdoors offer full deniability as part of an ass-covering strategy. All software has bugs, all software therefore has backdoors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> They were also paid a bunch of money to buy Skype and rearchitect it to enable wiretapping. It's not like they've "seen the light", depending on their incentives their actions change.

<comment><USER6> Do you have a link for that, or is it still speculation?

<comment><USER7> It's still speculation, and one of Skype's lead engineers wrote a completely sane explanation of how the centralization had to happen if Skype was going to work well on mobile, since you're not exactly going to be getting tons of supernodes on iPhones. You're welcome to believe that they _also_ did it for government reasons, but there are definitely sane technological reasons, too. I'll update this comment with a link in a few minutes if I find it.

<comment><USER8> Something like this: [http://www.zdnet.com/skype-ditched-peer-to-peer- supernodes-f...](http://www.zdnet.com/skype-ditched-peer-to-peer-supernodes- for-scalability-not-surveillance-7000017215/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _" While we have no direct evidence that customer data has been breached by unauthorized government access, we don't want to take any chances and are addressing this issue head on."_

Technically, he didn't lie. He did say "unauthorized", after all!

<comment><USER10> also didn't say authorized by who I guess...

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> tl;dr pr piece:

> · Customer content moving between customers and Microsoft will be encrypted > by default.

> · All of Microsoft's key platform, productivity and communications services > will encrypt customer content as it moves between Microsoft data centers.

> · Strong cryptography to protect these channels, including Perfect Forward > Secrecy and 2048-bit key lengths.

Microsoft already does each of these today (for sure Exchange and SQL, which I know the best), and they have done them for years now. Nothing changes. The more important question is how Microsoft manages the keys for this encryption, because when I was there the keys were still based on NSA-approved root keys...

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm not a security guy, but isn't this just "cryptowashing" if there's a man from the NSA on the inside?

<comment><USER13> Not necessarily - if you do the encryption on the client and only ever transmit encrypted data, then even an insider can not learn much about your data. But this may be difficult and/or impractical. You can not easily search your emails if Microsoft only stores an encrypted copy. It might work better for storing your files on SkyDrive. What we really need is practical fully homomorphic encryption [1].

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homomorphic_encryption](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homomorphic_encryption)

<comment><USER14> As long as the source is closed, you'd never know if the private key is transmitted or not to the server.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The NSA needs to put people back at ease, to make the Snowden story go away. What better way than to have Microsoft, Google and others make a statement like this?

Before using any Microsssoft product again, remember the parable of the Indian and the Snake: [http://instereo92087.tripod.com/indiansnake.html](http://instereo92087.tripod.com/indiansnake.html)

<comment><USER16> good parable.

btw. oh wow, tripod is still around, nice to see some old websites

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Microsoft is like the cheating boyfriend/girlfriend that always come back saying "I'm different now, I've changed!"

</comment><comment><USER18> This is a good move - it increases overall security from illegal and quasilegal actors. "A rising tide lifts all boats". While it might prevent certain kinds of switcharoo ("let's exchange data on each other's citizens since we can't legally spy on our _own_ citizens" maneuvers might be hampered), it still doesn't deal with an overly broad court order (c.f. Third Party doctrine). This does nothing against a duly authorized order from a legal entity. Those are threats that are very hard to deal with, in general. In order to ensure that privacy is maintained against overly broad and unreasonable _legal_ searches, a non-technical (that is, political/legal) solution must be implemented.

edit: Microsoft has been one of the voices calling for legal reform. I respect that. It might be a PR move, but still... I'll take it. :-)

</comment><comment><USER19> "Code Transparency

In addition, Microsoft said it would enhance the transparency of its software code, helping to convince customers its products do not contain back doors. The company said it would go as far as opening a network of "transparency centers" designed to provide customers with greater ability to assure themselves of the integrity of Microsoft's products. The centers will be opened across Europe, the Americas and Asia, Microsoft said."

Transparency centers, eh? Is that like a Microsoftian Ministry of Truth where inquisitors go to be reeducated?

</comment><comment><USER20> What is a "transparency center", and what does it do?

Is that an office where you can sign an NDA and then read source code all day?

Is there a way that a company with closed source and proprietary infrastructure can prove that it's not up to any funny business?

Spideroak can, but only by opening up the client-side source code.

<comment><USER21> "Is there a way that a company with closed source and proprietary infrastructure can prove that it's not up to any funny business?"

No.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Anytime Microsoft comes up with their fake privacy promises one particular case always comes to mind: Mordechai Vanunu [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordechai_Vanunu#cite_note-55](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordechai_Vanunu#cite_note-55)

Microsoft is running an anti-Gmail campaign blasting Google for snooping on emails in order to serve ads. [http://betanews.com/2013/11/05/microsoft-is-at- it-again-new-...](http://betanews.com/2013/11/05/microsoft-is-at-it-again-new- campaign-targets-googles-email-scanning/)

</comment><comment><USER23> Microsoft first should make Bing to support, not even use by default, HTTPS.

</comment><comment><USER24> Increase your security by trusting proprietary software to protect your data! Don't worry about the big, bad government. We'll make sure that we are the only ones spying on you.

</comment><comment><USER25> words, just words.

It is not that complex, it is called "End the Patriot Act" or lobby for that. Until just telling your customer that they are being watched is against the law and they could go to jail for that, nobody should trust ANY American corporation.

And no, not all countries in the world have this kind of totalitarian laws. Yes, companies could give info about you to the government, but under court order, and those are public or private only for a small amount of time.

</comment><comment><USER26> Any word on when outlook.com will send/receive encrypted emails? Currently any time an email passes to/from the outlook.com domain it's in plaintext.

</comment><comment><USER27> I don't know why Microsoft are bothering with this. The 'I have nothing to hide' crowd could not care less and those that are quite fascinated by everything NSA are not going to ever believe that Microsoft are anything but evil.

The funniest Microsoft story for me was the one regarding their former security chief. Nowadays he won't use Microsoft products or anything else where he can't see the source code. Until such time as Microsoft open source the stuff they churn out then all one can do is 'believe' them to be good and, after finding out how in bed they are with the military-industrial-complex, I just do not trust them.

<comment><USER28> This may be a marketing campaign to reassure their international customers, in particular governments and other large organizations.

<comment><USER29> But those are exactly the customers who won't believe you anyway???

I'm not saying that these customers don't have justification for their paranoia... just saying that there is an extremely high probability that Brazil, or Indonesia, or Statoil are planning to phase out use of American software over time in any case. In fact, it's so plainly evident that surely American tech companies should already be factoring it into their strategic planning???

Why not try to create some new customers? Or do something that doesn't rely on foreign organizations to trust, or use your software?

I don't know what that would look like... but that's why they get paid the big bucks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Ok...more protection against breaches, but what about the stuff they are giving _willingly_? Until any of these big companies start getting serious about _end to end_ encryption, I can't take them seriously. It's just PR at this point - or rather PR _damage control_ , after the leaks.

Another big change for me would be if Microsoft announced that they stopped giving NSA lists of fresh Windows vulnerabilities before they even start working on them. Until they stop doing that, this is all pointless.

Their policy should be: "either everyone knows about the vulnerability, or _nobody does_.". Whatever argument they had before about "responsible" disclosure, is all moot now that we know they're disclosing those bugs to NSA in secret anyway.

<comment><USER10> Encryption does not mean anything until you reign-in law enforcement powers.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which book are you reading? - <AUTHOR> I just finished The mating season by PG wodehouse. I will probably start Right ho Jeeves next. <comment><USER2> Not reading it currently, but I can't let a thread like this go by without suggesting the Silo Saga by Hugh Howey. The first book in the series is "Wool: Part 1", which (last I looked) was a free Kindle book on Amazon, and I'd graduated to purchasing the rest of the series before finishing the second chapter.

It's a phenomenal series, and I'm a little embarrassed that it took me so long to find it.

Aside from that, I had started (before his passing) an Elmore Leonard marathon with the goal of completing every single novel that Leonard has ever written. If you're ordinarily a sci-fi reader, perhaps this isn't the best suggestion, but I find the wit, terseness and change of pace extremely refreshing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah that is on my radar. I have wanted to read it ever since I read more about Hugh. Really like the guy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I recently got back to reading _Infinite jest_ by David Foster Wallace.

On a more technical, I'm reading _SICP_ \--- could you believe someone had thrown this book out (I guess left out for donation). I rescued it have been reading through it. Scheme is nice, but what is even nicer is the JS version: ivanistheone.github.io/SICPapp/ (credit Martin Henz for JS adaptation)

</comment><comment><USER4> Just finished East of Eden and then started up a goodreads account. Without trying, I now have 37 in queue. Pretty excited to find out about goodreads and get solid recommendations/reviews.

If anyone wants to friend up there: [https://www.goodreads.com/rockymadden](https://www.goodreads.com/rockymadden)

</comment><comment><USER5> Currently reading _The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail — but Some Don 't_ \- Nate Silver

Before that, I had just finished _The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation_ by Jon Gertner.

Next, I may read _Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data_ by Charles Wheelan.

<comment><USER6> Also reading _The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail — but Some Don 't_ \- Nate Silver

And also in progress:

 _Buried for Pleasure_ \- Edmund Crispin

 _The Dying Trade_ \- Peter Corris

 _Think Bayes_ \- Allen B Downey

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality by Gail Dines.

Should be essential reading for everyone, especially men, in this day and age.

[http://www.amazon.com/Pornland-How-Porn-Hijacked- Sexuality/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Pornland-How-Porn-Hijacked- Sexuality/dp/0807001546)

</comment><comment><USER8> 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greeene. It's a Machiavellian approach to managing your life in order to maximize your personal power and influence. Although I don't plan on becoming the Prince himself, it's a quick, interesting read written from a unique perspective.

</comment><comment><USER9> I know I'm a little late to read this, but I've been enjoying _How to Win Friends and Influence People_ , by Dale Carnegie. It's interesting how it objectifies social interaction with others in such short passages.

<comment><USER10> the modern equivalent of the book is "Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi"

<comment><USER9> Thanks! I'll definitely check it out!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Just finished [http://www.josh.is/rood-a-cyberpunk- novel/](http://www.josh.is/rood-a-cyberpunk-novel/)

I actually read it a few years back, but came across it the other day, and decided to read it again.

</comment><comment><USER12> _Franny and Zooey_ by J.D. Salinger. I can't figure it out. It seems like it might be terrible. I'm half enjoying it and half sort of hypnotized like a chicken by it.

<comment><USER13> FWIW, i think it's terrible. There's a few really excellent pieces of writing sprinkled throughout it, but the whole thing felt hollow and self-indulgent to me.

<comment><USER12> I guess it's a failed experiment the way _Catcher in the Rye_ was a successful experiment. But it's kind of interesting despite that. I like how daringly he injects esoteric religious material into conventional 1950s settings. But it was too hard to pull off. None of the characters is captivating and most of them, especially Zooey, are asses in a way that doesn't feel entirely intentional.

I'm on a Salinger kick, having run across his books for a couple bucks in a used bookstore and never having read him before. He is a singular writer. _Catcher_ was a freak success. Like Kurt Cobain, Salinger would clearly have been happier as an obscure cult artist. But _Catcher_ was the opening bell of the 60s counterculture just as the 50s were getting started. Once it picked up a wave it became a tsunami.

I was surprised at how good the pieces in _Nine Stories_ are, e.g. "The Laughing Man" and "Love and Squalor". He paints childhood and adolescence beautifully, as well as charming interactions between children and sensitive young men. But it all gives an impression of, um, arrested development. Did he write any great adult characters? The pervy teacher in _Catcher_ doesn't count. It seems that adults in Salinger's world mostly just get sour, and the one who is clearly his favorite he has blow his brains out in front of his wife.

More Salinger books are supposed to be coming out now that he's beyond the reach of his fans and the press, and it will be interesting to see on which side of the divide they end up. One hopes they'll be awesome. But I suspect the odds are better that they'll be weird and turned in on themselves.

<comment><USER14> Did you like _The Royal Tenenbaums_? NPR's pop culture critic says that movies is basically F&Z filmed.

(_Tenenbaums_ is among my least favorite Wes Anderson movies).

<comment><USER12> I haven't seen it! I haven't seen anything.

I finished F&Z last night. The thing is a train wreck. Now I'm curious to read the rest of what Salinger published (pretty easy to do) because _Catcher_ and _Nine Stories_ are so good and F&Z borderline intolerable. Perhaps it was his Metal Machine Music.

Does Tenenbaums principally consist of turgid dialogue about mysticism?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> _City of Thieves_ by David Benioff

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Thieves_(novel)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Thieves_\(novel\))

</comment><comment><USER16> I've just started three books this week. Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon, First Shift by Hugh Howey and Understanding Computation by Tom Stuart.

<comment><AUTHOR> All at the same time! How do you manage? I have tired doing that several times but I usually end of reading the one I like the most first which is why now I focus on only one book at a time.

<comment><USER6> I don't know about OWaz, but I get bored quickly, so if I read one book last night, I'm not likely to want to read the same book tonight. If I have no other book in the queue I'll probably end up reading HN on the iPad, if I do have other books, well then I'll read them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm doing a Neal Stephenson marathon, just started with Quicksilver last night, after finishing Snow Crash and Reamde back to back.

</comment><comment><USER18> Categorically Unequal by Douglas Massey, great book on stratification and inequality in America. Also reading A Farewell to Arms.

</comment><comment><USER19> The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker

</comment><comment><USER20> The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. Awesome!

</comment><comment><USER21> For fun: Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman.

For figure out a web front end for my REST API: AngularJS by Brad Green & Shyam Seshadri

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm reading Under the Dome right now. After this I'm thinking of starting The Gunslinger.

</comment><comment><USER23> I just bought the Chris Hadfield book "An astronaut's guide to life on Earth" :)

</comment><comment><USER24> Abaddon's Gate (Expanse, #3) - James S.A. Corey - Its a pretty amazing series.

</comment><comment><USER25> Started reading the Ender Series in anticipation of the movie. Right now on book 6.

<comment><AUTHOR> I did that with harry potter. Wanted to do the same with eragon but they never made any more movies :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Starting Washington by Paul Johnson and rereading a lot of favorites: John Boyd's biography by Coram & Seneca's Letters from a Stoic.

On the side, I am trying to finish Eisenhower's biography - 500/700 pages.

</comment><comment><USER27> _The Machinery of Freedom_ by David D. Friedman.

</comment><comment><USER28> Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

</comment><comment><USER29> Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton

<comment><USER30> I love Crichton's stories more than any other author. Pirate is the one that was finished posthumously, right? I've been meaning to pick that one up.

<comment><USER29> Yes, it was published posthumously. There is another book that was actually finished by another author after Crichton died which is called Micro.

I get the feeling Pirate Latitudes was closer to a first draft than a final draft - but it's still Crichton.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> atom-morgan Design for Hackers by David Kadavy

</comment><comment><USER31> _The Count of Monte Cristo_

<comment><AUTHOR> You are in for a treat man. I read it once every year (not cover to cover just my favorite parts esp the prison) just to fire myself up.

Side note: The movie is also quite good.

<comment><USER10> which movie version? (there are many)

<comment><AUTHOR> I was talking about this one

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0245844/?ref_=nv_sr_2](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0245844/?ref_=nv_sr_2)

not entirely faithful to the book but it is well done. I have not watched the oldies. Any suggestions?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Partial Bootstrap for a SaaS Startup - <AUTHOR> I'm an average full stack developer working freelance. I've got some experience managing myself, and mentoring other developers, running a business not so much. Currently I have the luxury to spend about a third of my time working on side projects.
I would like to try use this time to bootstrap a startup. The focus will be enterprise software for a specific industry, unrelated to my other work. However, I do have some insight, and connections to this industry. I want to manage the project as a single developer and eventually sell subscriptions to SaaS.
One model for funding is a single client that pays upfront (at discounted rate), with the understanding that it's my product, and I'll eventually on-sell it. This is not practical in the industry I want to focus on. My product should be impartial, not associated with a single player. An idea only will be too hard a sell, I'll need a MVP to generate some interest.
Another approach is to pay for the project with my time, maybe also spend some savings paying contractors. I'll be invoicing myself for developer time.
It occurred to me that I can give people the opportunity to buy in by paying a part of the cost. Maybe even pay for specific features. As incentive, rather than shares in a business, I would offer future profit sharing. Investors can buy in at any time and pay as much or as little as they want. The profit share is determined by the fraction of dev time that you've contributed, or paid for in cash. Does this make sense, am I using the right terminology? Am I just describing a specific type of share ownership in different words?
Anyone tried this before, any tips or recommendations on how to structure such an agreement?
Tbh, I imagine the subscriptions only making a modest amount of profit if the project is successful. I'm fairly confident the bootstrap cost can be kept to a minimum. If costs start spiraling, or subscriptions just don't sell I want to walk away and continue doing contract work. <comment><USER2> So I built 2 different SaaS products out of my own consulting agency (that actually made it to market). And I did them both differently.

I lucked into a situation with one product where basically a client needed a tool to do a job but it was something we had solved like 6 times in the past couple of years, so we knew there was a market for it. So we did team up with him on it essentially. He had no interest in the product part, just needed his problem solved, but he liked the idea of a discount on his dev fees. So what we did is cut our dev fees to him (still covering our costs), he got a worldwide non-exclusive license to use the product but not to resell, and we kept the rights to resell. So in the end, he got a product & free support for a period of time (at a steep discount) and we got a money maker, not great money but real money.

The second time I just sucked it up and used off-time and down-time from consultants and myself to build the product. While it took us much longer, and nearing launch we had to dedicate more time to it which meant me funding a couple of people full time (versus just down time hours), I would say I preferred this route. It meant we didn't have to compromise on features, or develop a feature we felt/knew had no basis to be in the product. What I liked was we could focus on making a product first, which is hard to do when you are essentially solving someone else's problem. I'd do this route again over the other just for the simplicity, yes more risk, yes longer time to market, but much less of a compromise which you then turn around and spend months fixing later.

<comment><USER3> > What I liked was we could focus on making a product first, which is hard to > do when you are essentially solving someone else's problem.

Isn't solving someone else's problem the point of a product?

<comment><USER2> Yes, I agree that is the point of building a product. The one catch there, is when you have a client paying for development there are compromises and time to market considerations to which can affect having a product available to the wider audience.

In our case, we were working both with the client we were building the product for initially and also we had prospected a number of other clients and were trying to get an MVP out that solved the problem and then iterate. However, that didn't work for the primary client and a number of things he wanted in his MVP were not good general product market fit, which made it harder for us to manage the timing & expectations. So while it was overall less expensive initially out of my pocket, the timeline was dictated/dominated by the client and special features they needed which took away from making a generic product that we could've had in the hands of others faster. Which in the end meant we had more product/development churn then if we had gotten the more generic 80% MVP out for a wider audience.

That's what I meant by we could've focused on general product first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> We bootstrapped our SaaS company. My advice:

1) pick the one problem you are solving and do whatever research / market sizing you need to do to feel more assured that your proposed solution is meaningful enough to pay for and enough people have the problem to be worth the while

2) spend a lot of time with your pilot costumer. Their time is worth more than their money. Say you are deeply committed to building it and when you do they can have it free for a year. So many great SaaS businesses were built this way and it's a fair trade

3) build quickly and drop any feature that doesn't facilitate point 1 above

This is all high level. Happy to chat more over email or Call about specific tactics and strategy. Good luck.

Edit: Just finished late breakfast, have one more item to add:

4) don't obsess about hitting grand slams (ideas that can make $100mm in ARR for example). You can live a very good life with a small team of people you like and respect with a SaaS business that does $3-5mm a year. VCs hate these but trust me, you'll love it.

</comment><comment><USER5> The largest problem developers have with bootstrapping a project is that they focus way too much on building vs solving a customer pain point. This leads to bloated MVPs and little feedback from customers.

Devs need to flip their focus. Instead, spend a lot of time with customers, build marketing landing pages, which include mockups of the software, and see if you can attract paying customers. Gather feedback early and often.

Once you're successful with that, you'll have a clearer path of what to build. Then go build it.

The magical part of this approach is that you'll have most of your sales and marketing pitch down by this point, so launching your project into a business will be so much easier and more likely to succeed.

<comment><USER6> I can also read it like this, though:

> The largest problem d̶e̶v̶e̶l̶o̶p̶e̶r̶s̶ people have with > b̶o̶o̶t̶s̶t̶r̶a̶p̶p̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶a̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶j̶e̶c̶t̶ doing their own thing is that > they focus way too much on b̶u̶i̶l̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ what they like to do.

Isn't that the whole point of doing your own thing, though? If you really want to make money (desperately) the strategy would certainly change, but a lot of developers are really just pursuing a hobby or side project with a (probably unrealistic) dream of striking gold.

<comment><USER5> I suppose it could. I guess one would need to look down deep to understand what would make them most happy in the end. Taking the risk of running a business should be part of that consideration.

Personally, doing my own thing has been about personal freedom and optionality. I don't think you need to make it big to fulfill that dream.

Many people believe that you need to build a billion dollar company or you've failed. There is nothing wrong with making a $100k/year business and enjoying the fruits of your labor.

Happiness should be the goal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ive done this a few times. 1 more successful than others. I would strongly push back on presales not being a possibility in your industry.

every single person says that, but the reality is a lot more likely to be the thing you want to build doesnt have enough value to the customer to part with their cash today.

Also agree with everything below. don't worry about this stuff right now. The sole focus should be what problem do people have that I can solve. Once you figure that out, and build an MVP, then you could worry about fancy business design.

"Getting the flywheel moving" is an incredibly hard part. You most likely will never move past this stage, which means all energy spent not trying to solve that singular issue will result in waste.

As far as paying for features, Id also strongly suggest against this. Initially, and for years to come, if your project is successful there will probably only be 1 major reason a customer hands you money to solve their problem.

This might be bc you save them 10 hours a week of manual labor, or ensure no mistakes are made while processing time sheets or guarantee uptime for production (whatever it is). Even though that might sound like very few people want it, if you can find a few you are on to something.

Anytime spent building a feature because a client paid for it will not be time well spent (all things considered).

I work on an enterprise rapidly scaling b2b SaaS app in finance space. We took lump sums early on from customers and now have 5-6 different "features" in our apps that have to be maintained, supported, all unique to 1 financial institution.

It might not sound like a lot, but when you're trying to get developers up to speed, help them understand the code base, and there are things like that, it really costs, and those costs scale exponentially.

Each feature we have to ensure works with this, doesn't break anything. etc. when we only had 2 developers this was something everyone knew. Now that we have multiple teams, its really, really expensive.

Tread lightly. Solve the first problem in front of you fairst (find a problem people will give you money TODAY to solve). If you succeed at that, you will have $$$ to solve your other problems.

<comment><USER8> So, to expand a bit on the concept of paid features, my current strategy, I give two options:

1) The paid feature, if it is based on a fixed fee, includes a warranty period, where we will prioritize fixing breaking changes as other parts of the codebase change.

Once the warranty period is expired, it required additional payments to fix the feature.

2) No warranty, but the feature cost increases their monthly or yearly SaaS fees, and requires advanced notice if disabling the feature.

As long as the user is paying for the feature, development resources will be devoted to maintaining it.

This also helps steer customers toward option 2.

Honestly, I use both these strategies more-so to prevent wasted time with feature requests the customer has no interest in paying for.

It forces them to find value in what they are asking for, not just because it is a 'great idea'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> You are over-thinking this. Just build software and sell it.

Contractors would be an awful idea. Expensive, inconsistent. You are standing by your product you should know/trust every line of code in the beginning.

Why are you invoicing yourself for your time?

</comment><comment><USER10> Lot of very valid advice on achieving product market fit and ticking through the early stages of the business in the comments here. Your questions seems to be more focussed on "assume I have pmf, would a profit sharing structure be a valid way to incentivise developers / early employees".

What your suggesting does sound a bit like dividends. Give early employees shares directly and pay them pro-rata on the percentage of shares they own via dividends from the profit. Perfectly valid, possible tax implications and maybe not a long term solution if the company grows to more than a handful of people. Giving people shares directly also removes the long term incentive to hang around.

In truth getting to profit with enterprise software will likely take years. I've been running an enterprise software business for almost 3 years and we're absolutely no where near profitability.

</comment><comment><USER11> [https://www.indiehackers.com/](https://www.indiehackers.com/) is a great resource around this.

The Mom Test (Book) is a way to verify the thing you're building people will actually want. Providing market-fit can be hard.

Startup School by YC is another good resource to keep you accountable and make progress with your ideas.

<comment><USER12> Indie hackers is definitely great for this kind of content. I'd also recommend "Startups for the rest of us" [1], "The art of product" [2], Patrick Mckenzies blog [3] and Stripe Atlas guides [4]. The first three resources all pretty much describe how to bootstrap SaaS-companies, while the Atlas guides are more general guides for businesses. Finally there's an excellent episode on Reid Hoffman's podcast "Master's of Scale" interviewing the founder of Mailchimp [5].

[1]: [https://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/](https://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/)

[2]: [https://artofproductpodcast.com/](https://artofproductpodcast.com/)

[3]: [https://www.kalzumeus.com/](https://www.kalzumeus.com/)

[4]: [https://stripe.com/atlas/guides](https://stripe.com/atlas/guides)

[5]: [https://mastersofscale.com/ben-chestnut-the-case-for- bootstr...](https://mastersofscale.com/ben-chestnut-the-case-for- bootstrapping/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you haven't already check out the podcast startupsfortherestofus.com Rob has lots of great advice on stair stepping. Also check out tinySeed for when you get traction.

I'm doing the same thing, building a SaaS that clients are using that I will market to a wider audience in the future. I'm using my 20% time and have built out just enough that I can charge clients for the service my SaaS provides. I invoice them manually currently.

I wouldn't mention about it being a SaaS or them funding the development, and definitely not anything about a discounted rate. If they are asking for a feature/service build it and charge them an onboarding or initial fee + monthly fee to cover some of your costs. Deliver it as a service they sign up for you can invoice them manually initially or integrate stripe in to it or do that in the future.

You'll have some signups and can catch bugs, improve the service, take feature requests, get signups. Using the revenue to cover some of your costs.

If a client asks for a new feature you can introduce an add-on to his subscription and/or an additional one time fee.

Note in your contract this is offered as a service, you retain all rights to use/resue/resell the code and offer subscriptions to the service. The client has the right to subscribe or unsubscribe from the service. You have the right to wind down the service after XX months. Prices and features may change in the future.

If the service provides value don't sell yourself short, SaaS is an amazing business model. Granted it's a slow ramp, but amazing the revenue even a small team can generate.

The Build Your SaaS podcast is good too.

</comment><comment><USER14> What is it that you are trying to build? Tough to recommend practical advice or monetization/funding strategies without knowing more.

>Tbh, I imagine the subscriptions only making a modest amount of profit if the project is successful. I'm fairly confident the bootstrap cost can be kept to a minimum. If costs start spiraling, or subscriptions just don't sell I want to walk away and continue doing contract work.

You are setting yourself up to quit. Unless you fall into something that people are willing to immediately throw money at then starting a real business is hard - especially as a solo founder.

You don't sound that excited about the actual product and it doesn't sound like you think its a billion-dollar idea, so why are you doing this?

Your 1/3 extra time is better spent finding an idea you are so passionate about you can't just walk away or working harder in your existing job to further your career and open up more opportunities in the future.

</comment><comment><USER8> You are over-complicating this.

Create your MVP mockup and try to sell that.

If you do not raise enough to fund your bootstrapping, refund the money and move on.

</comment><comment><USER15> The profit sharing part sounds odd as described. Cost of dev time is constantly increasing at a variable rate, so there would be automatic dilution baked in. Similarly by accepting any amount of money, you could be giving away a majority stake (and making a major commitment) before you even get started.

Generally I think it's worthwhile to think of customers and investors as separate entities and use established paradigms to deal with them. Ultimately you could have a combined customer-investor, but the deal needs to make sense from both perspectives. Learn about seed stage investment and how deals are structured in order to balance control with the interests of both sides.

If you're not careful it would be very easy to set up a deal with radically misaligned expectations on both sides, and without the right structure, a customer-investor could end up taking you for a real ride.

</comment><comment><USER16> * One model for funding is a single client that pays upfront (at discounted rate), with the understanding that it's my product, and I'll eventually on-sell it. This is not practical in the industry I want to focus on. My product should be impartial, not associated with a single player. An idea only will be too hard a sell, I'll need a MVP to generate some interest.*

There is nothing like having a paying customer to tell you what they need. Then the next two customers comes along they may need something entirely different. You won't have enough data points until you get a few customers to know what to generalize. It's the standard "Rule of 3" in software architecture.

</comment><comment><USER17> Be careful about the legal side. Whether it's shares or "future profit sharing", you may be offering unregistered securities. The Howey Test ([https://consumer.findlaw.com/securities-law/what-is-the- howe...](https://consumer.findlaw.com/securities-law/what-is-the-howey- test.html)) is what you would typically look at to decided if what you're offering is a security or not.

In short, if you go this route, you should look at not just the business trade-offs but also the legal implications. You can probably get a brief opinion from an attorney for somewhere between $0-$500

</comment><comment><USER18> Might this help the exploratory development?

[https://github.com/saasforge/open-source-saas- boilerpate](https://github.com/saasforge/open-source-saas-boilerpate)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comment.

I'm not looking for technical advice on how to implement SaaS. I've done this a couple of times before with various technology stacks.

I'm more interested in how to fund development, and fairly reward backers if the project is successful. What type of agreement can I use to implement this?

Ideally, potential clients might suggest and fund features, then be rewarded with a discounted or free subscription.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Find a company that needs what you offer. Offer to build it for them for X dollars, you retain all IP. This is fairly common in development. James Altucher also talks about this somewhat regularly.

</comment><comment><USER20> The real cost is your time. Projects always take longer than you expect, especially if you haven't done it before (the business part). Product is the easiest and has limited risks if you have decent dev skills.

Enterprise is also one of the hardest markets, not only technically, but also getting clients (3-12 months from first contact to money in the bank is normal). Enterprise is also a game where they don't buy the best software, a lot of factors play a role in getting enterprise clients. It's doable but definitely playing a new game on hard/insane level.

Focus on the problem that you solve for the business, without a very strong case for that and be able to gain a champion within the company you are selling to, it's near impossible. As you can see its more about sales, and connections, and less about product.

I've been in your situation before serving enterprise SaaS as a two-person company for 5 years. It was very hard and I would not do it again. Then again, once we got clients they were easily paying $30k/yr with long term contracts in place. High risk, high reward.

If you are starting out you have different levels of risk you can take. Since your real prime-time years are at stake, are you going to play this game on hard right at the beginning? I'd suggest to start on easy, get more experience, and as you grow, level up. Once you have a couple $$$ in the bank, do bigger projects with higher risk/higher reward ratio.

That's what I wished someone told me 10 years ago.

If I were you in this situation now, I'd first warm up those connections, as they will play a crucial role in your company. Is it something they want or need? Is the pain they are experiencing so hard they are willing to prefund the project? If you think so, try convincing them to get either dev money beforehand (hard) or have them sign a binding (hard) or non-binding (doable) agreement to pay xx amount when the software is ready. Include what features/problems you will solve in the agreement.

Your ideas about profit sharing are too complicated in my opinion.

If you are not able to convince them to prefund or either sign an agreement, for me personally this would be already too high risk. Unless those connections are decision makers and you play golf every month with them ;)

That's what I would do in your situation and my 2 cents.

Wish you all the best of luck, not want to discourage you, but sharing my own experiences in a somewhat similar situation. If you need advice, help, or just wanna bounce some ideas, always willing to help out fellow entrepreneurs.

<comment><USER21> "The real cost is your time." -> this.

we've been doing this for the past 4 years, but as i really started to enjoy sales, things are going quite well, so i'm just adding my 2 cents:

From my experience the sales process is the only thing that matters. No client cares about the software (at least initially). Although this is/was tough to hear as a softwareenigneer (i didn't believe it either), if you're in B2B and trying to solve a serious enterprise problem, most of the readily available info on "how to start up" on the web is not applicable. All the talk about "build a fancy landing page", "build an MVP", "test your market first" did not help us. This is because we found that our target audience is not really active on the internet and the amount of potential DECISION MAKERS/BUYERS (not users!) is in the thousands to tenthousands not in the millions. Therefore we needed direct sales, whether we liked it or not. And initially that's a founders job. See this as a hint for my claim: B2B companies that are turning over many millions of dollars per year often have "a website" (which looks like it's 1999) but that's basically it.

Why? The clients are in B2B as well, so the level of doing business is mostly person to person, establishing a relationship. You don't need a fancy website for that. The reason is actually pretty simple: If you are solving a relevant business problem in B2B the duration of the anticipated business relationship is 5-10++ years. Depending on WHAT problem you solve the dependency on the clients new supplier (=you) is very high. Therefore a client cares much more about WHO that supplier is. Building that trust takes time and interactions, and that is why B2B is so fundamentally different from B2C where you have everything from one-off interactions to product-lifecycles of 1-3 years (max).

It was therefore always clear to us that building a viable B2B business takes 10 years.

So what did we do? Initially none of our clients cared about the software but about the business problem we solve and the people/the company who they are doing business with. We funded our product development by doing a mixture of pre-financed dev work & "contract software dev/consulting" with the IP remaining with us. This allowed us to build a product and use the references to get to work with the next clients. Over time this lead us to our (now SaaS) product.

B2B is tough, but as soon as you're in, you're in.

edit: typo

<comment><USER22> I'd love to hear how you went about getting invited into the club. In particular, how did you develop your first contacts?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> you might check out some of this:

[http://startupclass.samaltman.com/](http://startupclass.samaltman.com/)

on talking to users.

</comment><comment><USER23> I would build a landing page first.

So, that you focus on the sales pitch. What is the key benefit. what problem does it solve? what are the three things that will guide people to want to use it.

maybe blog about the problem. and get it out to your potential audience.</comment>