Larry Ellison: The Old Valley Is History (2003) - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_34/b3846648.htm

<comment><USER2> Repost but Larry Ellison, 2005 interview with SF Chronicle

The entire interview is interesting for Larry Ellison predicting the future and then implementing it.

"Q: Does that lead to a consolidation period?

A: The industry is maturing. It is going to consolidate. That's exactly what happened to every other industry. I didn't invent the idea of consolidation. What happens during a period of consolidation is (the company in) second place can suddenly move and become the winner.

One of the interesting things is (that) when you look at when the automobile industry, the clear winner in the early phase of the automobile industry was Henry Ford. Ford was the No. 1 car company in the world by far. Then a guy by the name of Alfred Sloan decided to get all of the good losers together -- Chevrolet and Buick and all those guys -- and built General Motors. Then General Motors passed Ford during the consolidation phase in the automobile industry.

So during the entrepreneurial growth phase, Ford won. During the consolidation phase, Ford lost and found itself in second place.

Q: So you don't want to be Henry Ford.

A: It's too late for anyone to be Henry Ford. That phase is over. We did pretty well in the database business. We have the No. 1 database in the world, and I'll argue that, at the dawn of the information age, that's not a bad position to have."

2003 - Peoplesoft acquires JD Edwards

January 2005 - Peoplesoft acquisition

January 2006 - Siebel acquisition

January 2008 - BEA acquisition

January 2010 - Sun acquisition

(via Wikipedia)

[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/05/08/...](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/05/08/BUGP7CKKEJ1.DTL&hw=larry+ellison&sn=293&sc=185)

<comment><USER3> "Then a guy by the name of Alfred Sloan decided to get all of the good losers together"

Larry's now the guy putting the losers together.

<comment><USER4> Hard to see how BEA & Sun can be considered losers (at least when it comes to tech) - for better or worse they are some of the most popular enterprise technologies in use, alongside Oracle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Larry Ellison always tries this scare tactics when the economy is bad, of course he needs to paint that big businesses are the only way to go. However we seeing that gigantic j2ee solutions with Oracle being to expensive and a move to a lot of cheaper OSS solutions like php, rails and django.

</comment><comment><USER6> Okay,I see different things. He said big companies will win and small ones will fail, and he thinks that the future is in "molecular biology", Wifi and other advanced technologies, which I don't agree with.

The future of the Internet and technology? I see that companies like Envato will win in the long run. MicroStock sites like Themeforest, code canyon and Active Den. Every man and his dog will purchase a computer, install some software and build something tiny and useful. People will build script, themes, plug-ins... They'll make enough money from it to live and some will become rich.

The ones that don't understand well what it is and the bad developers will get jobs at the 'big companies'. The smart will start small startups that either sells for millions or make 10 times a salary they can get from working a 9-5 job.

The future is in the hand of the smart. Sites like Hacker News and companies like Ycombinator will help them. I'm from a third world country, I know programming before I knew the Internet, but I wasn't able to use my full potential before sites like HN and blogs, forums, communities existed.

They completely changed my mind, made me another person. From someone that loves programming and build software to someone that understand the market and is able to build something that can makes him many and avoid working for a company with a stupid boss.

The future is in Freelancing, at least for me.

</comment><comment><USER7> (2003) more specifically from August 2003. Maybe someone can add that to the title.

<comment><USER8> The article is 6 years, 6 months, 6 days from today. Spooky.

[http://www.timeanddate.com/date/durationresult.html?m1=8&...](http://www.timeanddate.com/date/durationresult.html?m1=8&d1=25&y1=2003&m2=3&d2=3&y2=2010)

<comment><USER9> Spooky? Why? Pick any day and you could find articles written 6 years, 6 months, and 6 days before that date.

<comment><USER8> Thanks, I'll write that down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> He's had a bit of a change of heart about Cloud Computing since 2003, eh?

2003: "But the thing I'm most interested in is software as a service. That idea that every customer who wants to do accounting on computers, or every customer who wants to do inventory, or manufacturing, has to figure out what computer to buy, what operating system to buy, what Cisco router and switch to buy, what database to buy, is just nonsense.

Companies should be experts in their business, and computing should be available on the Net as a service. So more and more, our business is changing from selling our applications to our customers to: We buy the computers, we run the applications, and you use it. We'll be the experts. And you just pay us a monthly fee. That really is utility computing."

2009: "Cloud's water vapor….Cloud computing is not only the future of computing, it is the present and the entire past of computing.

…Salesforce.com has been around for a decade. And so has NetSuite…and people are saying, "Well, that's cloud computing." Google is cloud computing. Everyone is cloud computing….Everything is in the cloud now….It's this nonsense.

…But it's not water vapor. All it is is a computer attached to a network. What are you talking about? I mean, what do you think Google runs on?…Water vapor? It's databases and operating systems and memory and microprocessors and the Internet!

…And the VCs, I love the VCs. [They ask their start-ups] "Oh…is that cloud?" [And the start-ups go] "Oh! Oh! Microsoft Word! Change 'Internet' to 'cloud'! Mass change. Give it back to these nitwits on Sand Hill Road."

…What do you mean by "cloud computing"?…All the cloud is is computers on a network.

Our industry is so bizarre. They just change a term and they think they've invented technology….You can't just come up with a [slogan] like "Let's call that 'cloud." [But] it sure beats innovation."

<comment><USER5> Haha Larry only says stuff to get people riled up and he is never impartial its always about his position with Oracle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The railroad industry, which he used for comparison, is not apples to apples. Reason: There was no open source, cloud computing, etc. disruptive equivalents in the railroad industry.

On the other hand he's successfully made a boatload of money for investors.

</comment><comment><USER11> _IBM has been a cornucopia of invention. And they stand in stark contrast to a much younger company, Microsoft, which has done no innovation at all._

M$ has good research going on. The question is whether it can be productized.

</comment><comment><USER12> There's some truth to what he's saying, in that the most interesting innovation is probably going to happen beyond the web- clean tech, biotech, and life sciences.

<comment><USER13> Since that interview, a lot of interesting developments have happened on the web, e.g. proliferation of VoIP, mobile dev, microblogging and real-time search.

It does seem like the fields you mention are ripe for innovation, though. I wonder if CS will be playing a significant auxiliary role.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are you working on in retirement? - <AUTHOR> This thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12008790) made me wonder. For those of you who have retired and have continued to stay busy, what are you doing in retirement? <comment><USER2> My father is a chemist and retired head of R&D. When he retired a few years ago, he was managing a bunch of people and was never able to play around with chemistry himself. After retiring, he built a small lab in the basement, went back to playing around with formulas, and solved some of the biggest challenges in his industry. I'm helping him license some of the new technology he created, he's never been more excited about work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you able to share any more specifics? Or at least translate them into a generic enough description of what he was able to do in the basement that it is relatable here?

<comment><USER2> What he did was very technical. His lab looks like a "mad scientist" lab, but he also built very specific machinery to apply his formula for industrial use/testing.

I guess best analogy would be a senior coder, who was promoted to a managerial position and not allowed to work on code. Upon retirement, he created a one- person app/saas company.

<comment><USER3> But a one-person app/saas company is rarely a solution to some of the biggest challenges of an industry.

Can you at least specify the field in which your father innovated?

<comment><USER4> Yet a one-person professor research team routinely solves big challenges in certain research fields?

<comment><AUTHOR> I momentarily thought this might be a "Breaking Bad" troll...

<comment><USER4> Not trolling. Academics routinely solve huge challenges in research fields. No reason a retired engineer can't solve problems in a niche industry field.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I read a bunch of websites daily, including Hacker News. You'd think you could get thought that pretty fast, but it takes me hours, especially if I get sucked into the comments.

I'm interested in free culture and getting more free stuff out there, so I do some stuff on Wikipedia / Wikimedia Commons and Project Gutenberg.

Theoretically I could contribute to open source software, but there's no project in particular that motivates me at present.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm developing a distributed temporal KV store in C. My motivation for developing the TKV is my interest in such questions as 'why' data changes and the effect it has on the 'system' in general. I chose to develop the TKV so that 'time' would be handled consistently regardless of source data model.

</comment><comment><USER7> My father's last company started to fall apart a few years ago, and he kind of let go of it and let it die. He is in the early 60s.

It was a rather gradual transition from him working hard every day and an occasional weekend, to not doing much at all.

He did some traveling, then started fixing and renovating the dacha/summer house, reading books, pestering me to explain how this or that internet or tech thing worked, and so on.

On the personal side, he became much more relaxed and less snappy/irritable.

<comment><USER8> I went from working 70+ hours at as a senior manager at a bank doing compliance to working 40 hrs a week at a university. I run a very small development team, scrum coach a larger team and get to code some days.

My kids tell me that I am no longer grumpy. I feel better about myself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Not quite retired yet, but throttling down fast.. So, A couple of open source projects, building a primary glider and working on my surfing techniques..

<comment><USER10> From a 30s plan, or something more modern?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've thought about this a lot, since people used to do things like stamp collecting. Today's version, despite the urge to work on something "important," might be editing Wikipedia articles. Which as Wikipedia becomes broader, is pretty important if you ask me.</comment>


Megaupload shutdown hurt box office revenues for non-blockbuster movies - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-shutdown-hurt-box-office-revenues-121124/ <comment><USER2> A wonderful example of confirmation bias. "Oh, look, box office revenues are down... except for the blockbusters where the big studios earn their money, those got a shot in the arm. But we'll still go with 'hurts revenue'.

<comment><USER3> That is the effect I'd expect to see (yay more cb). People don't want to take a chance with a small indie film unless they know it's good and with MU down, there's no word-of-mouth information to tell them it is. But they still want to go see a movie. The effect being that they bank on something sure - a well- promoted and known movie. In effect blockbusters with huge marketing get a boost, because smaller films' marketing gets nipped.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Link to the academic paper. "Piracy and Movie Revenues: Evidence from Megaupload" <http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2176246>

<comment><USER4> From the paper: "Box office revenues of movies shown on the average number of screens and below were affected negatively, but the total effect is not statistically significant. For blockbusters (shown on more than 500 screens) the sign is positive (and significant, depending on the specification)."

<comment><USER5> How can you claim an effect is present when it is not statistically significant? The paper seems to undermine its own "findings." I'm not sure anyone expects torrentfreak to be concerned with accuracy, but it's pretty blatant to have a misleading article title while still quoting the paper as finding the negative effects "insignificant."

<comment><USER6> I actually understand the passage as such that the effect is significant for the negative impact on the subset of movies shown on less than 500 screens but the overall effect on all movies is not significant.

Without access to the whole paper it is hard to tell though.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why don't more open-source projects monetize? - <AUTHOR> I don't own/lead any significant open source projects, but it seems like there are very few projects that even attempt to monetize via dual-licensing, service contracts, etc. Is there some major barrier to monetiziation (i.e. legal fees)? Is it a philosophical barrier? <comment><USER2> Because monetizing your open-source project means you take on a second job.

Here are your choices:

* Turn your OSS project into a company (Docker). The pro is that you can capture a lot of the value, the con is that you're splitting your project into CE/EE and also now you're a CEO

* Give the software away for free and charge for the hosting (Gitlab). Pro here is that you get recurring revenue, but the con is that now you're in DevOps and wear a pager. Also this model doesn't work well for libraries, only "apps".

* Charge for support (Ubuntu, Nginx-ish). Pro here is that by helping folks implement your software, you'll have a long line of success stories. Con here is that it isn't scalable - your upside is bounded by the hours you can bill

* Get a job at a company that will fund you to work on it (React, Angular). Pro here is that you can make tons of money with a job you love. Nice work, if you can get it. Con is that now you work for that company and you're subject to whatever whims they have.

* Run a Kickstarter (Light Table, Diaspora). Pro: you can gauge demand and you don't have a boss. Cons: it's one-time revenue, you have potentially inflated expectations, and just kidding, now you have 1,000 bosses.

* Run a Patreon (Vue). Pro: you have autonomy and recurring revenue (yay!). Con: now you're a personality. This is limited to celebs who are good at marketing _themselves_ as much as their software

* Ask for donations (Babel, Webpack). Pro: this works for tools and libraries (not just apps) and you can keep your mission. Con: Companies feel these donations have ambiguous deliverables. There's a lot of mental overhead too (How many projects can one company fund per month?)

* Sell documentation, books, videos (React Training, my current gig). Pro: JavaScript fatigue makes you money! Con: Writing the docs isn't as satisfying as writing software (for many developers)

So to answer your question: monetizing your open-source project means you take on another job _besides writing software_.

In an ideal world if you write software and it gets used, you'd be able to capture some share of that value. But we're not there yet.

[If you want to chat more about funding OSS, reach out to me (see my profile). I'm working on a few new ideas.]

<comment><USER3> _Ask for donations (Babel, Webpack). Pro: this works for tools and libraries (not just apps) and you can keep your mission. Con: Companies feel these donations have ambiguous deliverables. There 's a lot of mental overhead too (How many projects can one company fund per month?)_

I don't write software, but I have run various small websites for something like 15+ years. I have always gotten more donation money than ad money off my projects. I switched to a tip jar (last year, iirc) and that further improved my take. (It isn't much, but it beats the figures I have seen quoted by most people when data has been asked for on HN. I also don't get much traffic. For the traffic involved, I think it is pretty good.)

I have also seen Patrick McKenzie talk about the fact that he won't donate money to open source, but if you are willing to write an invoice for him, he is happy to give you money. The reason is that he needs to justify his business expenses on his tax returns and a "donation" is charity that he can't justify to the government, but an invoice for a product he uses in his work is a legit tax deduction. He has talked about how he thinks open source should make invoicing business customers painless. I don't readily have a source at my fingertips, but I bet someone on HN can come up with a link.

A compendium of my own writing about tip jars: [http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/search?q=tip+jar](http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/search?q=tip+jar)

<comment><USER4> Interesting idea...

Original source could be the tweet embedded in [https://supso.org/blog/funding-open-source-by-rethinking- the...](https://supso.org/blog/funding-open-source-by-rethinking-the- assumption)

<comment><USER3> I don't follow his tweets, so that is unlikely in this case. It is vastly more likely to have been a comment somewhere on HN that I happened to read. (But that's a really great source you have linked to. Thank you.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've tried it. I've failed at it.

Halite is a libsodium wrapper for PHP projects that emphasizes ease-of-use and difficulty to misuse: [https://github.com/paragonie/halite](https://github.com/paragonie/halite)

CMS Airship is a secure-by-default content management system (think WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, etc.): [https://github.com/paragonie/airship](https://github.com/paragonie/airship)

Both projects are released under GPL but offer commercial licenses. In two years, I've only had one person ever inquire about a commercial license, and they backed out.

One of the libraries I wrote has an installed base of (not counting WordPress) over 28 million, yet I rarely hear from its users: [https://packagist.org/packages/paragonie/random_compat](https://packagist.org/packages/paragonie/random_compat)

The barrier isn't legal or philosophical, it's that a lot of very useful open source software (especially libraries that developers interface with) are infrastructure rather than window dressing, which is largely _invisible_ to organizations.

If you only develop window-dressing libraries, then the stuff 'patio11 has said here over the years might hold true. But if you're trying to build a more secure Internet by giving developers better tools, nobody wants to pay you for that.

<comment><USER6> Do you have any stats on how many people use the first two products?

<comment><USER5> Roughly 15,000 for Halite [https://packagist.org/packages/paragonie/halite](https://packagist.org/packages/paragonie/halite)

Less than 10 for Airship. There's a lot of reasons for that, though (aside from the fact that we built it to be Tor-friendly, so it's nontrivial to measure how many installs exist in the world): We only supported PostgreSQL and only users capable of installing libsodium from PECL could use it. PHP 7.2 will make it possible for everyone to use Airship version 2, and MySQL 8 will add CTEs so we might be able to support the more mainstream database. [https://wiki.php.net/rfc/libsodium](https://wiki.php.net/rfc/libsodium)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have a little open-source Mac utility where the source code is available on GitHub:

[https://github.com/pkamb/PowerKey](https://github.com/pkamb/PowerKey)

I then sell a compiled version signed with my Apple Developer ID via Gumroad:

[https://gumroad.com/l/powerkey](https://gumroad.com/l/powerkey)

This model works pretty well for small apps that you otherwise want to keep in a public repo. The hassle of compiling + signing the app is worth $5 to many people.

For anyone dabbling with the idea, I can't recommend Gumroad enough for simplicity. But it would be nice to see payment/storefront functionality built into GitHub's Releases feature. A GitHub sanctioned payment system might even clue some creators in to the fact that you _can_ charge for some component of your open source work.

<comment><USER8> There's also a quite well known sprite/pixel art editing/drawing application, named Aseprite, which has a similar model - the author sells it as a paid app in its compiled form, though he also makes the full source available on GitHub. I have huge respect for him for that, and that it seems to work for him!

[https://www.aseprite.org/](https://www.aseprite.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Because monetizing any business is really really hard. I work on Standard Notes ([https://standardnotes.org](https://standardnotes.org)), which is an encrypted notes app (think of it as an encrypted Evernote alternative). It's fully open source, and I'm monetizing it through paid upgrades.

While the progress is promising enough for me to continue working on it full time, nothing could have prepared me for how difficult this was going to be. I had always been under the illusion that if you had a product you wanted to sell, and there was demand for it, then an automatic transaction takes place.

Not so.

Not so at all. It requires understanding your users, learning about their preferences, learning how to re-engage with them, learning to keep them interested and engaged, and learning how to position your product as one people want to buy.

All of this is very very hard, especially if you don't have a marketing background. It is surpassable though. It just takes time. I'm doing this full time and I still can't keep up. I can't imagine how you could possibly monetize a project part time, unless you're committed enough to spend the next five years of your life on it.

<comment><USER10> Just a heads-up, standardnotes.org is very broken (big area of overlapping text) in IE11.

<comment><USER9> Oh no, thanks for the heads up. Will take a look.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> People don't pay unless forced to do it. In other works, people only pay when there's _scarcity_.

What drives our economy? Scarcity. What's the long term effect of capitalism? Commoditization, i.e. driving the costs down. Some people view open source as being about a post-scarcity economy in which human labor isn't need, an economy based on abundance. That's bullshit though. Open source is about commoditizing software developers in order to increase profits.

So the answer to your question is that there are only 2 ways to commoditize open-source:

1\. make it a complementary to something proprietary and sell that instead; the " _open core_ " model is known to work well for some companies

2\. choose a restrictive license to make it useless for the target audience (e.g. GPL / AGPL for libraries)

You'll notice that I'm not mentioning _selling support_. Some consultants earned their name by contributing to open-source. But you can also write books, or blogs and you'd probably earn a bigger following. And you're still selling your own personal time, which is limited, as there are only 24 hours in a day, you're probably not a rockstar to have obscene hourly rates and if you're thinking of building a company around supporting open source, just don't, as you're not Red Hat and you'll never be.

<comment><USER12> > What drives our economy? Scarcity... Some people view open source as being > about a post-scarcity economy in which human labor isn't need, an economy > based on abundance. That's bullshit though.

I don't think that is the case at all.

If I have a woodshop and a customer comes in and hands me wood and nails, and I spend a day banging together a table for them, at the end of the day there is one table. A scarce good - one table is created, no more.

If I spent a day coding an Android app, publish it on Google Play, and it takes off and Android's daily two billion users take to it, my day's worth of work is not used by one person or one family. It is used by two billion people. Perhaps my app is mostly based on gluing together open source Android libraries and non-Android-specific libraries for the open source Android OS.

There is a scarcity and labor needed for the creation of the table or the app. The difference in the case of the app which almost for free goes out to two billion people, is that it's virtually free to copy and distribute it. It's really not even a commodity any more.

<comment><USER11> > _If I have a woodshop and a customer comes in and hands me wood and nails, > and I spend a day banging together a table for them, at the end of the day > there is one table. A scarce good - one table is created, no more._

That's natural scarcity. We also have _artificial scarcity_ imposed by laws and technology.

If you think that's unfair, I might agree morally speaking, but then we'd end up talking about how we're actually debating Marx's "labor theory of value" (i.e. value is given by the total amount of labor required to produce it), which was fundamentally flawed.

<comment><USER13> What makes Labor Theory of Value _fundamentally_ flawed? The fact that it has the letters M, A, R and X tied to its authoriship?

I agree that toilling at useless task adds zero value in the best case -more often than not, it adds negative value by creating commitments to perform further useless tasks in the future- but what is so wrong with considering costs of production within the value added? I think it makes more sense to recognize zero (or negative) value added task for what they are instead of declaring them "marginally valueable" and then try to push the externality of their cost unto others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If the project is maintained in someone's spare time, then the cost to monetize it, in time and effort, might exceed what they are willing to put into it.

In my own case, I have a silly JS library with 4,000 hits per month to the docs, but "monetizing" that just sounds like work, whereas working on the library itself is fun.

</comment><comment><USER15> Following the example of Sidekiq (with Sidekiq Pro), I'm in the process of launching a commercial offering for Kiba ETL (OSS Ruby ETL framework - [http://www.kiba-etl.org](http://www.kiba-etl.org)), dubbed "Kiba Pro".

My take on this is that more developers could try to follow that path, but we lack a bit of guidance (I'm lucky Mike Perham provided some useful insights to guide me actually) to reduce the anxiety & uncertainty associated with such launches.

The hurdles can be numerous & blocking:

\- IP - making sure your consulting contracts are IP-safe

\- Proper pricing (how do you segment your offer? how to avoid pricing "ceiling" effect etc)

\- Distribution (e.g. I'm using [http://packagecloud.io](http://packagecloud.io) for our "paid gem")

\- Proper custom ToS

\- Product related theory such as "how to create leads channels" etc

\- Billing & invoicing

\- etc

Personally, I've decided not to attempt to "monetize" the OSS part, but rather launch a paid counterpart covering more advanced uses or built-in components.

<comment><USER16> I am in the process of doing something similar with rediSQL [[https://github.com/RedBeardLab/rediSQL](https://github.com/RedBeardLab/rediSQL)].

I would love any further feedback you can share.

<comment><USER15> I will definitely share more in a future blog post (subscribe at [http://thibautbarrere.com](http://thibautbarrere.com)). Emailing you to make sure you have the information.

<comment><USER16> Great, thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I run an open source project (turtlapp.com). I want to monetize. I have people who tell me fairly often they want to pay for it.

There are two things that hold me back. First is never quite feeling like it's ready to charge for (perfect being the enemy of good). Second is I don't know how much time I can devote to supporting it.

Both are stupid reasons. I know this. I'm hoping to launch a premium service soon, and we'll see where it goes. If I spend 5 hours a day supporting it, I'll probably just shut it all off and prioritize my Turtl emails a bit lower like I do now. If I end up spending an hour or two a day on it and make some money, I'll kick myself for not doing it earlier.

<comment><USER18> Just start charging. You'll want to know earlier rather than later which one it is. Life is short. If it turns out this is not the thing you should be working on, knowing which one it is will free your mind up to do something else you should be doing.

<comment><USER17> Great advice. It's funny because I already _know_ this, it's logical and the decision makes sense in every way, but I still have trouble _doing_ it. I've got a nice chunk of nights/weekends in July, maybe I'll make the final push then.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, I know the feeling. It's usually some mental block, or erroneous belief you have that's held by those in your circle, or something you identify with. Sometimes it's a fear. But either way, it's usually a bug in the way you're seeing the world.

Once you can identify the bug, it'll be easier to know what's making you hesitate. What's the basic belief you have about money and business that's held in your social circle, or attached to your identity?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> To answer this I would ask what is the biggest reason to do Open Source. As an individual, the _main_ reason to do that last step and publishing what I do as open source is so other people can use+benefit from it and monetizing it would hinder this.

Now there are many great secondary reasons as an individual, in no particular order: I learn a lot, I got some paying gigs from my open source, better code through more eyeballs, it builds curriculum/personal brand, it feels good to be complimented, etc. For companies I'll guess also it's a great recruiting tool as you are not a name in the dark but you show your code (I've considered that when looking for a job).

Oh wait, I totally (honestly) forgot about your main question when listing the benefits. I would say that the common feeling (at least in JS world) is that open source does not give _direct_ money, so few projects start with the intention of getting it and later on it's more difficult.

If you try to do it there is a whole topic on this: [https://opensource.guide/getting-paid/](https://opensource.guide/getting- paid/)

To OP, since you've opened this discussion would you please share your thinking as well?

<comment><USER20> Another reason some companies publish open source code is to recruit contributors. Contributors already know what they're doing and are clearly passionate enough about the product to spend time on it for free, so they may be a natural hire when a position opens.

<comment><USER21> I think you're vastly overstating it.

The main reason most companies open source stuff is because they had to build something for some reason or another, the thing works, but they don't want to maintain it because it's plumbing and it's not mission-critical.

Sometimes it's easier to throw the thing on GitHub (where others might find it and at least use it) than throw it in your company's internal repository (where nobody will ever find it and it will rot away).

<comment><USER22> Citation needed!

Most of the time it's much easier to leave stuff in internal repos than doing the effort to review and approve stuff for publishing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's very difficult to do well is why.

* It changes the dynamics of the project when other people see you're making money on it.

* Dual licensing might hamper adoption.

* Service contracts are not easy to work out, and the better your code is, the less likely people are to even need them.

</comment><comment><USER24> Our startup is in the process of launching an open source product and monetizing (currently) by offering it as a SaaS solution. People will be willing to pay for something if it's going to make their life easier

The trouble with monetizing open source is that if your project isn't a "full product" like wordpress, gitlab, or discourse with a well designed interface and plugin support you don't really have a way to sell the product as a service which I think is the most lucrative way and you can then start adding premium features to this service if you want to go down the open core route.

</comment><comment><USER25> We are monetizing Ionic Framework right now. Two things we're doing: premium tools/services on top of the core (our Creator product is leading that charge), and then additional product features for enterprise, which does have "support" aspects to it, but that's in support of their use of a product. Kind of hard to avoid selling any kind of software for lots of $ without someone being able to contact you in a prioritized way.

</comment><comment><USER26> Because most of the time you can't monetize it enough to be able to escape your day job.

So at the end of the day, it's just beer money, and just creates more headaches (legal, taxes etc.)

</comment><comment><USER27> Read "Why do people keep contributing to these projects, when they're not getting paid for it?" (Page 53) from "Road and Bridges" by Nadia Eghbal. It has a very good analysis. [https://fordfoundcontent.blob.core.windows.net/media/2976/ro...](https://fordfoundcontent.blob.core.windows.net/media/2976/roads- and-bridges-the-unseen-labor-behind-our-digital-infrastructure.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER28> Apart from the causes, the reality is that very few companies have been successful at monetizing open source, and many of the ones that do only appear to be successful because of "echo chamber" effects.

Red Hat Linux is the main counterexample. Companies do pay for their support, but CentOS nips at their heels and Red Hat has also lost the support of the "enthusiast" community which has largely gone to Ubuntu.

Cloudera is an example of the kind of "hype-driven" company that gets taken seriously because they get written about in TechCrunch every few days, but they don't have any unique selling point, particularly compared to the free Hadoop distribution. When they got started, the idea of offering a GUI client seemed like a good idea, but after the devops revolution this became value subtraction instead of value addition. (Why click hundreds of times through multiple forms to set up a cluster and have to repeat the whole process all over again next time you build a cluster when you can type a few commands, hit ENTER and have it be done?)

<comment><USER29> Not to diminish your point about CentOS interacting with RedHat's business model, but note that RedHat acquired CentOS in Jan 2014:

[https://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos- announce/2014-Janu...](https://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos- announce/2014-January/020100.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I think it's that A: you have to have a _huge_ open source project for the 1% of the 1% of your audience who will actually pay in any useful quantity to be big enough to support you and B: by the time you've grown to that size, you must have found some way to become that large without the direct monetization, so you may not feel much of a need.

</comment><comment><USER31> I think it's better to see open source software as "cost reducing" rather than "revenue generating". Consider for example HHMV, developed by Facebook. The way to monetize your open source project is to get adopted/hired by the biggest commercial entity who makes use of your project.

</comment><comment><USER32> Monetizing, or at least trying to monetize can be kind of counter productive for many projects, specially smaller ones.

Personally, I have a few projects on Github that seems to be somewhat useful to other people... but not a lot people (my most "successful" project has 61 stars, not bad for a side project but ridiculous if you compare it with big projects in the thousands of stars).

Trying to monetize it doesn't worth the burden, maybe I could get a few bucks with Patreon or gratipay, but I would need between 100 to a 1000 times what I could reasonably expect to be given to make a living out of it.

Monetizing them also means I would have some moral obligation to maintain them properly. This really depends on your view on the question, but for me it's kind of import. Right now, I try to respond to bugs and PR as fast as I can, but if I'm feeling lazy or if the issue is to complex to be fix, I can leave it opened for months. Maintenance is purely best effort.

I've started these projects for various reasons, but one common denominator is that they enabled me to learn some stuff and/or maintain my competences (setup proper unit tests, documentation in rst, more advanced knowledge of Python, de-rusting my C, cmake, OpenSSL programming, Puppet types and resources...). One other side effect is that these projects give proof and credibility of what is written on my CV, so, in fact, it's not completely un-monetized...

Also, another driver for publishing these projects is: "why should I keep that to myself? it might be useful to other people" and even if it's not, GitHub is a convenient place to store code ^^.

I'm speaking for my personal projects, but I think I'm far from being an exception, big OSS projects that can be monetized are the exception, they are often core components (a kernel, a big library or framework, a big piece of infrastructure...), but many more smaller projects live (and die) around them serving their small purpose (if any).

</comment><comment><USER33> Do you have any numbers to support your premise? "Few" is relative and in the eye of the beholder, and I personally don't have the impression that only few projects 'monetize'. There are a lot of commercial open source projects, I find out about a new one almost every day. However, you may be right if what you want to say is that only a small _percentage of the total number of open source projects_ monetize. The same probably holds for proprietary software, too, most of it is in-house or developed by hobbyists and only few proprietary software projects successfully 'monetize'. And let's also not forget that the vast majority of all projects, be they open source or not, are probably abandoned/given up.

<comment><USER34> The most interesting one from the failed business perspective is Blender, commercial project turned open-source via a bounty.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I've been encouraging a 5% philosophy for organizations that replace software that had license fees with free software:

Just donate 5% of the previous annual license fee to the project you're now using, each year. You still save 95% on license fees and developers get to eat.

<comment><AUTHOR> I like this, but I can imagine it being a hard sell even at just 5%.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Motivation? Programming has always had a strong undercurrent of sharing. Programmers want to read the code. Programmers want to share how they accomplished something.

That being said, you will likely get different answers on HN than you would on, say, r/programming or IRC.

</comment><comment><USER37> When you open source a project you don't always want to monetize that project but it fits in your plan to make money. For example big companies release open source projects so the community get expertise in their tools which means it will be cheaper to hire people with that expertise and it becomes easier to move the community to use your other paid tools. Another example to open source a project it is because it is not a key thing in your product and you can have people to use it at the same time they help you to maintain it. You can open source your pet projects so they gave visibility to you and makes easier to find a job.

Monetize it is not always the goal.

</comment><comment><USER38> Open Source Projects is a broad term. It could include a pet project with to large scale projects like the Linux kernel with a few thousand developers.

Here are some of the reasons monetizing is either not feasible or not desirable:

* for small projects, most contribution is done in free time by one or a handful of maintainers for a most part and some random flyby contributions every once in a while. In such cases monetizing would imply more work that distracts from the primary work of building software and the maintainers do not want to spend their free time doing that.

* even for slightly larger projects that possibly commercial companies depend upon, monetizing would imply a change in prioritisation in what gets done. The maintainers would be obligated to invest their free time in doing what paying customers need rather than what the community or the maintainers themselves want.

* for even larger projects unless the interest reaches the threshold where the maintainer(s) can quit their day job and depend on the money coming in from the monetizing it just eats into their free time for not enough money

There are other reasons as well about how to come with a scheme where those contributing do not feel like they are submitting patches just so that the maintainer(s) get to make money for their work, or just the principle of the thing about paying it forward to the community they got so much free (as in beer) knowledge and experience from.

</comment><comment><USER39> My best idea how to monetize would be to

1\. Start a convention around it, which could be profitable 2\. sell swag, T-shirts and the like (lets say it's a limited quantity that can only be bought by contributors, then it becomes a prized way to show off) 3\. in app purchases, for example if I made a photoshop equivalent, but had it linked up to a font store. 4\. Get companies/governments that use your software to give you Grants.

That's all I've got that hasn't already been covered. I know a few open source guys who just feel dirty about getting money for it. Personally I'm the same when I make art, I don't want it to be a job, when it starts becoming a job I stop enjoying it, and every time I've taken a break from art in my life it's because it started feeling oppressive like a job. As I learn to code, and as I start to enjoy it, I worry that a similar feeling may happen, in which case I may have an open source project or two on the side just for funzies while I have my moneymaking job separate. I think I would be happier with such an arrangement.

</comment><comment><USER40> Echoing the sentiment of other posters, monetization doesn't make much sense for many projects (beyond accepting tips) as it's more work to do without much $ in return. For success you'd need to invest time into marketing, revamping the website(s), changing how you present deliverables to (paying) users, setup payment processing, come up with a set of plans for various funding levels, etc.

This may rarely work out, otherwise it's a lot of work for below minimum wage. I tried to see if there was enough out there for one project I've been working on for years ( [http://zynaddsubfx.sf.net](http://zynaddsubfx.sf.net) ) and my attempt (like several others in related communities) was a flop. It was interesting from an experience side of things, but in the end the project was too niche to support itself (like I'd imagine most open-source work is).

</comment><comment><USER41> > _but it seems like there are very few projects that even attempt to monetize > via dual-licensing, service contracts, etc._

You don't know everything about the activities of open-source developers with regard to their project. They may be involved in service contracts and dual licensing, without that being advertised on their project site.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's fair. My observation is admittedly entirely anecdotal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> One important aspect is attracting contributors: Many potential contributors don't like investing time in a project, where one entity has a notable benefit from the unpaid work. If you don't have monitisation in mind in the project everybody interacts on an more equal level.

</comment><comment><USER43> Large open source projects have companies or foundations behind them. Project being open source is already part of their operation. Small open source projects don't monetize, because it would be more work then possible gain.

</comment><comment><USER44> If you're developing a library dual-licensing is a reasonable option.

Many open source developers probably shy away from that option though because they're afraid that fewer companies would use their library in the first place and they're also probably not entirely mistaken:

Enterprise companies are wary of effects licences like AGPL might have on their ability to keep their source code private. Unfortunately, those companies more often than not aren't exactly eager to pay for a licence that allows them to do just that either.

</comment><comment><USER45> Because it's one of the last vestiges from this field's early influencers -- the kindly computer nerd working on stuff he enjoys

This new economy of everyone monetising everything sucks :/

</comment><comment><USER46> Same old nonsense answers here.

1\. Because companies don't want to pay license fees, so then don't use the damn software, who cares.

2\. Oh you should just beg for handouts instead, because your effort and work isn't worth crap and you should be lucky to eat the crumbs of the massive tech industries table.

3\. Oh don't sell the software, sell a bunch of crap around it instead.

Its about time developers stopped being afraid to charge for their effort.

If you want to charge those who commercially exploit your work, than dual license the damn thing.

</comment><comment><USER47> Hmmm, many bigger open source projects seem to have associated consultants available. The project itself isn't monetized, but the guys behind it are.

</comment><comment><USER48> What you're seeing may be a case of survivorship bias. Monetized licenses aren't popular, so those licenses don't stick around.

</comment><comment><USER49> IMHO it's because, once you decide to go open source, you're creating with the intention that this is a "for the community" type of product, not a "for profit." It's like a non-profit company with unpaid volunteers. There's a cause that many people believe in and anyone can help work towards that cause to make it a reality.

<comment><USER34> Moreover, many critical projects are already done by FSF or Apache Foundation, which are non-profit. Other by RedHat, IBM, Google or Oracle, which already monetize them.

Some were done in a "scratch an itch" fashion and author is not interested in maintenance.

Some are research work where a given university (and not the author) would have to draft a contract for anything monetary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Kickstarter, Patreon, Donations, and Company seem like the best choices. The rest seem like it has a lot of overhead or restrictions.

</comment><comment><USER51> One barrier is that it's no fun to set up and keep going, so unless there's a pressing need, it won't get done.

</comment><comment><USER52> Nadia Egbal (github) has a great list of financial strategies for open source:

[https://github.com/nayafia/lemonade- stand](https://github.com/nayafia/lemonade-stand)

</comment><comment><USER53> In addition to donations and selling t-shirts (which is why having a proper name and logo is key), one way of monetizing is selling support and training related stuff. e.g: writing a book and selling it.

</comment><comment><USER54> Unfortunately the reality of trying to monetize open source projects is that Red Hat will just eat your lunch if its any sort of real significant business.

</comment><comment><USER55> It's the competition. Free as in Free and free as in free are better than free as in FREE TRIAL ACCOUNT.

</comment><comment><USER56> Most open source projects don't bring in any money so why bother?

</comment><comment><USER57> Because the need for monitization is a limitation. Take a game. You can try everything, but once you dev it for money- the whole shit-circues enters the town- making you think about the audience, the payroll, your family - and all these things limit you. In a very real way. Every naysayer who is applauded at a companys meeting tells you the answer why open source sometimes is more awesome. Because capitalism cant - and is afraid of risks.

Free as in un-bound software.

</comment><comment><USER58> a lot of high profile open source developers/projects are sponsored by commercial entities (redhat, intel, google, facebook, etc.), thereby eliminating the need for direct revenue generation by the contributors and maintainers.

</comment><comment><USER59> Because not everyone is a self serving greedy objectivist dick.

Some see a benefit in contributing to a shared collective good.

<comment><AUTHOR> I considered not replying to this just based on the tone, but here we go. If I (theoretically) charge large corporations for SLA support, that means I can devote more time and effort to the project which remains free to use for the collective. The result is a higher quality product with better support at no added cost to anyone but those that desire a higher level of support. Does that make me (again, theoretically) a self serving greedy objectivist dick?</comment></comment>


Nbdev: Use Notebooks for Everything - <AUTHOR> https://www.fast.ai/2019/12/02/nbdev/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi folks - Sylvain Gugger and I created nbdev. Let me know if you have any questions about it.

Since nbdev is written in nbdev itself, you can also use its repo as an example project to see how it works. Another good example project written with nbdev is fastprogress: [https://github.com/fastai/fastprogress](https://github.com/fastai/fastprogress)

</comment><comment><USER2> Looks great ! I don't know If you use Apache Airflow in ML or ETL pipelines but I wonder if one could use nbdev to generate Airflow Dags/Operator. There's already some work done to execute Notebooks[0] but would be cool to convert them to Python code!

[0] [https://airflow.apache.org/docs/stable/howto/operator/paperm...](https://airflow.apache.org/docs/stable/howto/operator/papermill.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh interesting idea - not something I'd thought of. (We don't use Airflow at fast.ai so this will likely require a PR.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> So is the ultimate goal here to have something highly annotated? I.e. instead of having programmers comment their code, you have them code their comments?

I like the principle, but what you say are the limitations so far? What can it not do?

</comment><comment><USER4> Literate programming making a comeback! (If it was ever in vogue anyway?)</comment>


This page is anonymous - <AUTHOR> http://voidnull.sdf.org/

<comment><USER2> I really wish people wouldn't base their claims on security contests like this: "nobody has claimed the reward so it must be secure" is fundamentally a really bad argument, and - as Moxie's article on the Telegram crypto contest [1] demonstrates - it's easy to design constraints that _look_ reasonable but in fact make the contest unwinnable, regardless of the scheme's security.

[1]: [http://thoughtcrime.org/blog/telegram-crypto- challenge/](http://thoughtcrime.org/blog/telegram-crypto-challenge/)</comment>


Russian Spy Planes In US Skies - <AUTHOR> https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-spy-planes-u-skies-025817534--politics.html <comment><USER2> If the USA denies access to this aircraft then the whole 30+ nation Open Skies treaty will basically collapse.

The point of it is that each nation is able to monitor each other, within prescribed limits to number and duration of overflights and sensor resolution.

I mean there isn't even a basis for this objection; the USA's OC-135s that participate in Open Skies are already fitted with synthetic-aperture radars ( SAROS ) and it's explicitly permitted in the Treaty:

 _Open Skies aircraft can be equipped with four types of sensors: optical panoramic and framing cameras; video cameras; infrared line-scanning devices; and sideways-looking synthetic aperture radars._

But the Russkies are fitting digital cameras! Those sneaky buggers. The OC-135s still use film cameras... embarrassing.

<comment><USER3>
      'digital cameras' == 'real-time intelligence'
      'film cameras' == 'non-real-time intelligence'

...not a big deal untill you imagine something like ARGUS ([http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/146909-darpa-shows- off-1-...](http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/146909-darpa-shows- off-1-8-gigapixel-surveillance-drone-can-spot-a-terrorist-from-20000-feet)) over your country _...now THIS has good reasons to freak you out if you 're in the spy business :)_

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> American authorities flip out when reporters from a print newspaper take photographs from a public road of a tank in front of a tank manufacturing plant--something that is obviously on display to the public--for use as stock photos the next time the paper needs to run a related story.

This just shows that they are hypersensitive and irrational about photography of any kind, whether it has actual intelligence value or not. That makes me suspicious that they are hiding something from us, perhaps something they fear that the Russians might reveal to the American public. But that could be just my foil hat talking.

Mutually assured surveillance seems a less dangerous baseline than mutually assured destruction, anyway.

<comment><USER5> "The Official Secrets Act is not to protect secrets, it is to protect officials." \- Humphrey Appleby, "Yes, Minister"

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's worth noting that the Russians have already set precedent for denying access to their air space under this treaty by canceling scheduled US surveillance flights during the build up on the Crimean border.

[http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/apr/17/russia- blocks-...](http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/apr/17/russia-blocks-us- treaty-approved-spy-flights/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Isn't that picture of helicopters? Do Russians somehow stage and fly helicopters in the US whereas we use OC-135s?

</comment><comment><USER8> Presumably, if Russia upgrades the observation planes, then the US can as well.

</comment><comment><USER9> As the article notes, the practice in question is governed by the Open Skies Treaty.[1] The treaty[2] allows party countries to review which aircraft types are permitted overflight rights under the treaty. So if the United States initially objects to a new type of aircraft doing overflights, it is simply exercising its rights under the treaty. This is an issue for international negotiation by diplomats. As in most matters of diplomacy, how the specific issues are resolved in this review will be determined in part by what each side has to offer the other in terms of reciprocity--does the United States get to fly enhanced aircraft over the territory of other countries, or not?

"Article V

"AIRCRAFT DESIGNATION

"1\. Each State Party shall have the right to designate as observation aircraft one or more types or models of aircraft registered by the relevant authorities of a State Party.

"2\. Each State Party shall have the right to designate types or models of aircraft as observation aircraft or add new types or models of aircraft to those designated earlier by it, provided that it notifies all other States Parties 30 days in advance thereof. The notification of the designation of aircraft of a type or model shall contain the information specified in Annex C to this Treaty."

. . . .

"Article VI

"CHOICE OF OBSERVATION AIRCRAFT, GENERAL PROVISIONS FOR THE CONDUCT OF OBSERVATION FLIGHTS, AND REQUIREMENTS FOR MISSION PLANNING

"SECTION I. CHOICE OF OBSERVATION AIRCRAFT AND GENERAL PROVISIONS FOR THE CONDUCT OF OBSERVATION FLIGHTS

"1\. Observation flights shall be conducted using observation aircraft that have been designated by a State Party pursuant to Article V. Unless the observed Party exercises its right to provide an observation aircraft that it has itself designated, the observing Party shall have the right to provide the observation aircraft. In the event that the observing Party provides the observation aircraft, it shall have the right to provide an aircraft that it has itself designated or an aircraft designated by another State Party. In the event that the observed Party provides the observation aircraft, the observing Party shall have the right to be provided with an aircraft capable of achieving a minimum unrefuelled range, including the necessary fuel reserves, equivalent to one-half of the flight distance, as notified in accordance with paragraph 5, subparagraph(G) of this Section.

. . . .

"Article VIII

"PROHIBITIONS, DEVIATIONS FROM FLIGHT PLANS AND EMERGENCY SITUATIONS

"SECTION I. PROHIBITION OF OBSERVATION FLIGHTS AND CHANGES TO MISSION PLANS

"1\. The observed Party shall have the right to prohibit an observation flight that is not in compliance with the provisions of this Treaty.

. . . .

"ANNEX C

"INFORMATION ON OBSERVATION AIRCRAFT

Pursuant to the provisions of Article V, paragraph 2 of the Treaty, States Parties, when designating aircraft as observation aircraft, shall notify all other States Parties of the information specified below.

"1\. Identification:

"(A) type and model; and

"(B) number, category, type and configuration of each sensor installed on the observation aircraft, as provided in accordance with the provisions of Annex B to the Treaty;"

[1] [http://www.state.gov/t/avc/cca/os/index.htm](http://www.state.gov/t/avc/cca/os/index.htm)

[2] [http://www.state.gov/t/avc/trty/102337.htm](http://www.state.gov/t/avc/trty/102337.htm)

</comment><comment><USER10> Anybody know what type of plane the Russians want to overfly us with?

</comment><comment><USER11> why did they agree to this? This would've been unthinkable 30 years ago.

</comment><comment><USER12> The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming!!

</comment><comment><USER13> "THIS IS AN OUTRAGEOUS VIOLATION OF U.S. AIRSPACE, AND WE WILL NOT TOLERATE IT."

~Someone who hasn't been paying attention to how the United States has been deploying its own air resources for over half a century

<comment><USER14> Per the site guidelines, please don't use all-caps on HN. Sorry, no irony exemption.

<comment><USER15> I downvoted you to turn your comment into a referendum on the irony exemption, whose judicious application I support.

<comment><USER14> The caps may be ironic, but the pain they cause is all too real.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Travel Startups: Why the Obsession with Flights? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mozio.com/travel-startups-why-the-obsession-with-flight

<comment><USER2> I'm in the Seattle area. Suppose I need to go to Los Angeles. Let's consider the alternatives:

1\. Fly. There are a plethora of flights on numerous airlines. I've got choices of extras (such as wifi in on the plane), whether I want to be treated like cattle or like dogs, how many stops, what kind of plane.

2\. Amtrak. This is going to be the Coast Starlight, so really all you have to pick is your departure time, and what kind of seating you want.

3\. Car. If it's winter need to check the weather forecast to see if you are going to need chains. Other than that, all you really have to decide is when to leave and whether you want to take I5 or go for the more scenic route down the 101.

4\. Bus. Take the train. The train is about 15% slower, but the accommodations are better, and it costs less.

Of these, flying is the only one where I need help to reasonably arrange things. I can book the train in a few minutes on the Amtrak site. For the car all I need to do is toss my junk in the car, put the destination into the TomTom, and go. If I do decide on the bus for some unfathomable reason, it's a few minutes on the Greyhound site to book my trip.

<comment><USER3> I suspect, though, that most folks never even think of the option to take a mode of transportation other than airplane or driving. I've talked to a lot of people who seem genuinely surprised to hear that there's a train from Chicago to $city.

Figuring out buses can also be difficult. At least in the Midwest, there's very frequently a regional carrier that's a better choice than Greyhound. But they all have these vintage 1998 sites that are confusing to use, though of course before you can deal with that you have to first discover that the company exists in the first place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 1\. Travel data is available so there's an incentive to work with it vs other problem domains.

2\. Bajillions of dollars are spent on flight.

3\. Affiliate (I think there's a better term but I'm blanking) sales are an instant revenue model.

4\. Most interfaces to the data suck in one or more ways.

It's tailor made for data- or interface-strong team to make a financially successful startup.

<comment><AUTHOR> 1) true 2)also true, but flight commissions are at ~.1% according to my credible sources. And they are vanishing quick. My personal opinion is that it is a failed business model and as travel companies shift away from making money off of transportation commissions we will see more alternative forms of transportation. 3) Only when a company gets to scale are they able to make ANY money off of flights, and even then the number of queries they have to pay for from their data providers, server costs etc., bite deeply into whatever fee they make. and the fee is super small to begin with. 4) agreed completely, I elaborate on that. Disagree with your conclusion. Hipmunk several years out is still not profitable, with a great interface. A lot of flight travel startups are not profitable, so I don't see how you say this is the formula for a "financially successful" startup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I dunno... I have a $320 car payment and buy maybe $20 of gas a week, so I spend a lot more on my car than I spend on flights...

Now I guess if I could somehow spend that $4850 on flights that would get me maybe ten coast-to-coast round trips, which would add up to many more miles than I drive.

<comment><USER6> But how much of that spend is ad influenced?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Monetize the car destination pathing.

With the site, the user creates their trip via car; businesses signed up for the service offer discounts for their services along the way; car driver wins, and is encouraged to stop at said businesses along the way; business wins, as they can easily market to potential customers and know exactly when they might be passing by, and can offer discounts to lure customers; site makes money from the subscribed businesses in one manner or another (there would be various ways to go about that).

Does this service exist? I've never seen it if it does.</comment>


The New Puritans - <AUTHOR> https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-new-puritans <comment><USER2> As usual, like a Puritan, Taibbi sees the world in black and white.

I don't have a problem with mayor/lecturer doing tinder or grindr with students that dont attend his classes, but using a political student org (if true) as hunting ground for other than votes is a bit predatory. At least wait until they graduate before inviting them to your private sexy gram channel.</comment>


Twitter blocked in Turkey - <AUTHOR> http://gizmorati.com/2014/03/21/twitter-blocked-turkey/

<comment><USER2> It seems to me that living in developing countries where you can 1.use Popcorn Time 2.rant on social networks 3.use Torrents 4.save the greens($) 5\. have someone to cook delicious meals 6\. yes - obviously HACK on imp challenges

would be a great idea to monetize on esp for most people on this forum.</comment>


How can we fight online shaming campaigns? - <AUTHOR> http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2221 <comment><USER2> I think the most dangerous people in the world are self-righteous idealists who wants to do good. They often end up causing lots of harm. Although, I do see that idealism can be good in some situations.

</comment><comment><USER3> People are starting to realize social media is not that friendly. Every statement made in public gets recorded and attached to your real identity forever. Kids who say stupid shit get that held against them forever from employers, associates or even random stalkers. All for the need of some targeted advertising. Hopefully, the generation coming after that would learn and be more privacy-aware.

<comment><USER4> > Kids who say stupid shit get that held against them forever from employers,

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-22083032](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk- england-22083032)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> South Korea, as I understand it, has this principle of ensuring that the author of anything Internet can be personally identified.

This kind of accountability might help even the odds between what is otherwise a named individual vs. an anonymous mob. I honestly don't know if it's a good idea or not, though.

<comment><USER6> That makes it very hard for some minority groups to talk freely. Trans people are a big example but even gays can be at risk. And then there are whistle blowers.

<comment><USER7> And speaking of "minority groups", at least on the net, what about conservatives?

Echoing my other comment about the totalitarian and most especially Stalinist nature of this arena, Brendan Eich was purged from Mozilla for holding the same position on gay marriage as Obama, "CEO" of the entire nation, officially did until May 9th, 2012, although in fairness to Obama, he said he changed his mind as opposed to always being at war with Eastasia.

The Left has captured a whole bunch of fields like science where "No Irish or (open) Conservatives" applies, so to still be able to engage in the public sphere anonymity is required.

And fortunately anonymity is enshrined in our lowercase and uppercase c/Constitutional order, e.g. _The Federalist Papers_. Compare to South Korea where they're still in a not quite hot but definitely not cold war with their northern Communist neighbor; I don't believe they can afford some of the civil liberties we enjoy.

<comment><USER8> > And speaking of "minority groups", at least on the net, what about > conservatives?

Conservatives aren't an underrepresented or disempowered group (the relevant sense of "minority"), even on the net.

They are a group with disproportionate power (rooted in disproportionate economic power, extending to political and social domains), many of whose members have, or effect for propaganda purposes, an (unjustified) sense of persecution.

<comment><USER9> >Conservatives aren't an underrepresented or disempowered group (the relevant sense of "minority"), even on the net.

Regardless, silencing or demonizing any group is wrong.

<comment><USER5> > Regardless, silencing or demonizing any group is wrong.

I find this blanket generalization hard to accept.

There's a group of parents who try to cure their children's autism by making them drink diluted chlorine bleach and giving them enemas of the same stuff. They get their advice from a couple who make money from the sale of books, supplements and services related to this horribly misguided and abusive practice. Would it be wrong to try to silence the perpetrators?

<comment><USER7> Under what principle would you allow _silencing_ , removing the ability of these people to speak, that includes them but not your favored tiny or not so tiny groups?

<comment><USER9> I find it disconcerting that many self-identifying 'liberal' groups advocate for the anti-liberal restrictions of speech codes. If you are not for free expression, everybody's, not just the ones you agree with or approve of, then you do not hold liberal views and are not a liberal.

<comment><USER7> That's because these people were never liberals. After they "used up" the word progressive, they stole liberal from the "classical liberals", somewhat akin to today's libertarians ... and now they've pretty much used up "liberal", and many are recycling the word progressive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It seems like an individually game-theoretic optimization to the online shaming problem is to abstain from discussing any controversial or potentially controversial issue, offline or offline, at any time, for any reason.

<comment><USER7> Talk to anyone who's lived in a totalitarian, Stalinist regime, or read things like _Nineteen Eighty Four_ and you'll find this is a very unhealthy thing to do, mentally and emotionally. It's also strictly impossible, for things that are safe today become unsafe tomorrow, because this is more about power and broken people than anything rational.

Its also dyscivic. Much, _much_ uglier things will happen if you cede to one faction the public sphere, the "soap box" in the sequence of "soap box, ballet box, bullet box".

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> In the example she made fun of 1)black people 2) AIDS 3) White people. And possible offended all religious people in the world. What can possible go wrong? :P

<comment><USER7> Indeed, but does the punishment fit the "crime"? If not, how many orders of magnitude is the latter off by?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Hasn't Scott Aaronson himself gotten salty at people he disagrees with?</comment>


Zuckerberg in Lagos Land - <AUTHOR> https://backchannel.com/zuckerberg-in-africa-da3dabf74276#.owqamw9el <comment><USER2> Call him "Zuck" as many times as you like, show him in hoodies, or in Africa... that's one man who's far too much of a known quantity for anyone with half a brain to buy the spin.

<comment><USER3> This isn't a very helpful comment. You are signaling that you know something important about him, and that I am stupid for not knowing what you're talking about, but that's about it. Please be more specific.

<comment><USER2> That you decided to take my comment, directed at no one and certainly not some random person I've never spoken to in my life, as an indictment of your intelligence is surely not my problem, nor is it what I wrote.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Lets not kid ourselves, he is there for Free Basics & that shit. I am not against Free Basics, a Company should be free to offer whatever they want, but that also seems like a very cruel plan to offer poor people with shitty internet.

Remember the time when he was in India for a week or even a month, but then India decided not to allow Free Basics, and now he's doing the same with Nigeria, which is soon going to be 3rd most populous country.

</comment><comment><USER5> This reads like a PR article that Zuckerberg paid to have written.

<comment><USER6> I saw your comment before reading the article and, I get it. There's a cynic in me too. However, after reading the article, I'm thinking, who cares?

I'm a sucker for a story about potential, especially in the underdog, and the parts jumping out at me are all about the potential of the people in Nigeria.

I somehow ended up following Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, but it's Twitter so the picture I get is very incomplete. To read that he got up at a formal demo day ceremony during Zuckerberg's trip with the VP of Nigeria in attendance and then criticized the country for being resistant to change is enthralling.

It's hard to be cynical about the article's puffery for Zuck, when it illuminates the intestinal fortitude of entrepreneurs making a hell of a run at it in a place that is infinitely less geared to making startups a reality than Silicon Valley.

<comment><USER7> I don't mind Zuckerberg going to Nigeria. I don't even mind the fluffiness of the article. But the whole narrative of Silicon Valley saving the world by showing up, is getting old. Zuckerberg isn't going to go home again and be like _" You know what? We need to deploy ipv6, bring computer science curriculum's closer to the real world, have a fundamental programming language that lives up to the requirements of today, fix software patents and get robust standards in place instead if reinventing everything all the time, so these guys can catch up to us and build their own future"_.

<comment><USER2> It's an effective way to generate positive spin... hell the "on site guidance" has been the major theme the Kims have used for three generations in North Korea. It's a way to appear generous, helpful, and subtly signal your indispensability at the same time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > [Founders in Lagos] struggle everyday against obstacles that are > unimaginable to their brethren in San Francisco. .... For startups, there > are particular challenges. Every hour or so, the power goes out. Most people > do not have bank accounts or credit cards, so it's hard to collect money > from customers. Funding is elusive. The nearest Philz Coffee is 5,418 miles > away.

Sometimes it's easy to forget how first world our own problems are.

</comment><comment><USER9> They should elect him president. I doubt most of the people running the place have walked those roads or visited the start up hub</comment>


The problem of Social Network Redundancy (One Platform to rule them all, please) - <AUTHOR> https://www.bgcallam.com/VGhlLXByb2JsZW0t

<comment><USER2> "More importantly, when content is cross posted where and how do I want to interact/process this?"

Agree with your frustration but you know, you are yourself creating this frustration by cross-posting your blog content to HN? You have comment facility, you have sharing facility, and you manually submitted your blog post here at HN. This all negates what you attempting to say. Hope you see the irony.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just so you know:

        You have attempted to establish a connection
        with "www.bgcallam.com". However, the security
        certificate presented belongs to "*.squarespace.com".
        It is possible, though unlikely, that someone may be
        trying to intercept your communication with this web
        site.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks again: Thanks. Can also be reached here until they fix it... <https://bgcallam.squarespace.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> This makes no sense at all:

"Before Zuck and co. created all of this mess, the platform was simply the desktop."

I had to stop reading and post this here because your assertion is not based on facts.

The deskop had nothing to do with Facebook and vice-versa.

More later if I feel interested.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Can also be reached here until they fix it...

<https://bgcallam.squarespace.com/>

<comment><USER3> Better if you reply to the comment, rather than to the root submission.</comment></comment>


Why All the Snowden Docs Should Be Public: An Interview with Cryptome - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/cryptome-is-pushing-for-all-of-the-snowden-docs-to-be-made-public

<comment><USER2> There are 2 different things that the author is conflating:

\- Snowden has decided to slowly diffuse the documents piece by piece to keep the public interested in the matters, even years after the initial impact. This is crucial in changing the masses mindset: ecolo stuff has taken 40 years to be something people care about.

\- Snowden and his partners have decided to exclude some information because reasons. They have taken an editorial role in the story.

While I agree with the author that the 2nd point can be problematic (because they are their own judges of what is good and what is bad, and that is not up to them to decide), the 1st point is really useful if you want to have a real impact.

So I'm globally positive about what Snowden has done, because the important thing here is for everyone to realize the massive surveillance on populations in direct contrast to our values. The exact details are interesting, but not as much.

</comment><comment><USER3> Thanks for this post! Really enjoyed the article. I've always been a regular reader of cryptome, but I _really_ wish they would re-enable their RSS feed as I would love to have this come to my feedly. PS: If anyone from cryptome is reading, I would pay for this service. Seriously.</comment>


3D printing could keep the ISS in orbit indefinitely - <AUTHOR> http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-cetera/3d-printing-could-keep-the-iss-in-orbit-indefinitely-20111215/ <comment><USER2> Hyperbolic headline, but the contents bring up an interesting point: printing space-things in space means you can make them to handle space-stresses and not launch-stresses. That _alone_ could be a huge boon to space-based endeavors.

</comment><comment><USER3> There are two flaws with this. One is that if something breaks that can't be manufactured with a 3d printer. (Solar panel, processor, gyroscope) The other thing that would be a problem is that you are just shifting it over to what the 3d printer uses as building material. Even if you put a stockpile up there it may still run out.

<comment><USER4> And what if the _3D printer_ breaks?! They'll need a 3D printer printer. ;)

<comment><USER5> There actually are a bunch of 3D printers that print most of their own parts!

<comment><USER6> Imagine a RepRap with NASA/RKA attention!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Aren't all the current 3D printers are dependent on gravity? Or is the hot material sticky enough?

<comment><USER8> Not all 3D printers use hot sticky material. And those that do usually have some kind of method to push the material out with pressure. It's not a gravity drop.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, but it assumes the existence of gravity, which affects the size and shape of the plastic as it dries.

<comment><USER2> Slightly, and less and less as you get finer and finer output and cohesion takes over.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Somehow no one seems to have mentioned food (at least source material for the printers has been mentioned).

So yes, resupply flights will still be required because for now at least, the operators of the printers and the actors who take their results and replace parts of the space station and then do science on the space station still need to be fed in food produce on earth.

This will help but I don't think it warrants the title's conclusion or the opening paragraph that we can so do away with constant resupply flights to ISS

<comment><USER11> 3D printing food: [http://www.good.is/post/the-food-printer-how-mit-is- taking-t...](http://www.good.is/post/the-food-printer-how-mit-is-taking-the- cooking-out-of-cooking)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The things that fail on the space station are not the kinds of things replaceable with a 3D printer.

<comment><USER6> Surely the kinds of things that a 3D printer can print don't have zero failure rates on the space station.

<comment><USER9> Things that fail are things with movable parts. On the space station, things with movable parts are either a) require materials 3D printers don't work with, b) precision engineered and manufactured with exacting tolerance, or c) both.

Are you saying that we can build an air lock, a solar panel, an air filtration system, or a robotic arm with a 3D printer? Because those are the sorts of things that determine the lifetime of the ISS.

<comment><USER12> > _Are you saying that we can build an air lock, a solar panel, an air > filtration system, or a robotic arm with a 3D printer?_

Sure, why not?

Some of them might have to be designed differently, but I don't recall anybody from NASA ever saying "it's impossible to design X in any other way".

<comment><USER9> All of those things enumerated depend on material properties, strengths, or tolerances that cannot be achieved with 3D printed plastic. Nobody is saying "it's impossible to design X in any other way", but rather we (I work for NASA) are saying that such objects make use of materials with specific properties, materials which cannot (yet) be used in 3D printers.

<comment><USER12> So here we have a NASA employee saying "we can't do it because the technology isn't already there" instead of "let's make this work". What a perfect example of the past 30 years of the US space program.

By the way, being in space can be a significant advantage for 3d printers printing metallic components. Not that you care, since you can't buy it off the shelf yet, and anything that hasn't been done can't be done.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is the ISS really worth keeping in orbit even in the short term?

<comment><USER6> As far as international budgets go, it costs _a pittance_.

It's worth keeping around for what it's costing us if only so that fathers can point to a moving dot in the sky and say to their kids, _"There are people on that."_

<comment><USER13> Why not divert all of that funding, even if it is not much, to useful space projects instead?

<comment><USER6> I'd be ok with that, provided they have similar or greater inspiration potential. Inspiration is like an investment, do it right and with any luck when all babyboomers die and are replaced you'll receive much more funding. For the same reason, that new project should be similarly international. I'd advocate defunding the ISS in a heartbeat if there was another project that I felt met those qualifications.

However, without looking at the numbers, I fear that the cost of running the ISS would only pay for a fraction of the cost of launching a new project. So of course in either case you'll need to find _new_ funding.

<comment><USER13> The ISS budget for 2012 appears to be just under $3 billion. This could fund quite a few robotic missions.

<comment><USER6> If you can squeeze that kind of inspiration and international cooperation out of a bunch of robotic missions, then great.

Edit:

Then again, this is what Cassini cost:

 _"Cost of mission: $1.422 billion pre-launch development; $710 million mission operations; $54 million tracking; $422 million launch vehicle; $500 million ESA; $160 million ASI; total about $3.27 billion, of which U.S. contribution is $2.6 billion and European partners' contribution $660 million"_

<http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/quickfacts/>

So you could get just less than one funded Cassini a year for what we spend on the ISS. You would still need to find additional funding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What happens when the 3d printer breaks?

</comment><comment><USER15> I know it's not the same but this is like a primitive replicator. Star Trek invented the future ;p</comment>


What is the best programming language to learn in 2014? - <AUTHOR> http://www.sitepoint.com/best-programming-language-learn-2014/

<comment><USER2> I'm glad someone took the time to point this out.

Here's the money quote:

"The best advice I can offer: stop taking advice from articles like this!"

</comment><comment><USER3> Did Oracle pay for this?</comment>


Non-blocking Programmers - <AUTHOR> http://codingrelic.geekhold.com/2011/03/non-blocking-programmers.html <comment><USER2> _"Ability to type quickly and accurately maximizes the effectiveness of time spent in the flow of programming. Hunting and pecking means you only capture a fraction of what could have been done."_

I submit that typing speed matters, but only as a component of what I'll be unoriginal and call actions per minute ( _significant_ APM, to be precise). More important components of SAPM would be pushing blobs of text around (editor knowledge) and manipulating/filtering blobs of text efficiently (Unix toolchain).

A 60wpm developer who uses rectangle commands and pipes a portion of buffer to shell to transform it may have higher SAPM than a 150wpm developer ignorant of the various shortcuts available.

To further flog the RTS analogy: typing speed and keyboard shortcuts that operate on one line are micro. Regex replace, sed/awk-fu, multiple buffer usage, etc are macro. To be an efficient dev both are necessary but not sufficient -- all the micro and macro in the world can't save you from brain- dead decisions.

<comment><USER3> I not sure the author disagrees with you here, however he doesn't specifically come out and say it and I can't really read his mind. So let me attempt to reword it anyways.

Being _proficient_ with the editing tool(s) of choice is of significant importance to productivity and keeps the natural flow and rhythm of the thought process while working. Hunt-and-peck is absolute crap, however, likewise anything over say 50wpm in concert with solid knowledge of the shortcuts and meta commands available is going to be sufficient to achieve a good working rhythm.

The premise the author made that I completely agree with is that touch-typing (i.e., not searching for the keys) is not an optional requirement for a productive programmer. I am mildly shocked that there are people on HN (not yourself obviously, but I've read through some of the comments here, and in other posts) who get worked up about this and actually get up-voted for defending it.

<comment><USER4> I was astounded when I noticed a coworker using hunt-and-peck typing. I simply don't understand how a professional who is passionate about their work can not spend the time to master their tools - especially one as fundamental as a keyboard for someone who uses the keyboard 8+ hours a day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _> Developers with a curiosity about their craft grow into better developers. This takes time away from the immediate work of pounding out code (point 1), but makes one more effective over the long run. _

This is something I wholeheartedly agree with. On the surface it seems to be an opposite of a `The Duct Tape Programmer' (whow gets the job done quickly when it matters most) -- but probably that's matter of self-discipline and having the goals set straight.

Now the question is, how do I pick such programmers in an interview? The ones that are curious about our craft, yet self-disciplined?

<comment><USER6> This gets said a lot, by many people, but: by checking their open-source / publically available work.

If someone's managed to complete a significant task, and the code looks readable and reasonable, they're probably fair decent programmers. Even better if they've got code Out There in multiple languages; that shows a broad base of both knowledge and experience, in my opinion.

<comment><USER5> That's half the answer, I'm afraid. Anybody with a bunch of time on their hands can churn out quality code. The other half -- self discipline to ``duct- tape your way through'' when in crunch mode -- is not covered by reading sources.

Now that I think of it, another angle comes to my mind: once you're done with the crunch mode, you need to get back to the duct-taped mess and mop it up. If working in an organization, it's mostly communication problem -- you need to explain to your boss why you absolutely must rewrite what works now. Not only taking time, but also risking introducing new bugs.

<comment><USER7> You'd be surprised.

For the least few years the place I'm currently working has used a remote development exercise as the first filter for applicants - send a simple programming task that should only take an hour or two and look at the results that come back.

50% of applications get rejected based on a quick skim of the code submitted - not for subtle reasons either, with the most common problem being solution complexity that is wildly disproportionate to the complexity of the problem (especially when the notes on the task explicitly warn against this).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The real question to ask is this: By reading this article, how much time have I wasted?

Sure, it took a few seconds to jump through my RSS reader, yep, it took a bit of time to read it because it's an interesting article, and obviously, I am now here, writing this comment and thinking whether I should inflict the link on my twitter followers, perhaps even on facebook.

And then the coup de grâce at the end of the article itself

 _> There are other factors relating to flow which can be optimized. For example one can block off chunks of time_

Well oops?

In general, the internet _sucks_ for productivity, but at the same time it's really really hard to code without it.

<comment><USER5> The internet itself is neutral, only gives high leverage to your actions. Feeling like procrastinating? It'll get multiplied 100-fold. Searching for something useful? It'll get multiplied as well.

<comment><USER8> The problem lies more in this sequence of events

1\. Searching for something useful

2\. Page takes a while to load

3\. Better use this opportunity to check HackerNews (or whatever)

4\. Waste 10 minutes

5\. Oh yeah, that site already loaded.

<comment><USER9> good point on the page-load thing. I wonder if some small technical tweaks could substantially change our behaviour here. Something like automatically flipping back to whatever page you were waiting for, as soon as it's finished loading.

<comment><USER5> To a degree, that can be fixed behaviorally. I tend to open outgoing links in background and continue reading the current document. Once I'm done with current document, I'll close tab and a fresh tab with (hopefully) already loaded content will slide in.

For example, a quick glance over HN's main page, followed by opening interesting stuff in background, followed by closing the main page.

Doesn't work too well with footnotes, thou.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Typing speed is completely irrelevant.

When I'm keyboarding in "stream-of-consciousness" mode (IM session, taking notes, etc.) my typing speed is well north of 160WPM. But when I'm writing code I type in fits and bursts -- a blur of fingers for a while, then blurs with small gaps of silence, then blur-peck-peck-pause-peck-peck-blur. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I'd bet most programmers exhibit this behaviour, but are (for the most part) unaware of it.

<comment><USER9> 160wpm? Really? You're into world record territory there: <http://www.owled.com/typing.html>

<comment><USER10> I spent close to 8 hours a day for almost two years in front of one of these when I was first starting out:

<http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/univac1710.html>

Which is why I emphasized "stream-of-consciousness". When you're doing that much data entry (U.S. Navy, destroyer tender, circa 1975, btw) you quickly learn to let muscle memory take over while your mind is elsewhere. Hell, I was one of the _slower_ typists in the shop -- there were guys around me that could consistently cruise through work orders at 200WPM or more!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> blocking: answering customer phone calls

Anyone else in a small company and get constantly interrupted?

<comment><USER12> I wrote a sweet python tool (log parser/highlighter with a web interface) last week that lets my users answer many of the questions they were previously calling to have me look up for them.

Net result: daily time savings for both parties and more time in the zone for me!

That and I now know a lot more about Python than I did two weeks ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Typing is not the bottleneck: [http://sebastianlab.com/post/140303165/typing- is-not-the-bot...](http://sebastianlab.com/post/140303165/typing-is-not-the- bottleneck)

<comment><USER3> He isn't saying typing is a bottleneck, read the actual paragraph under the poorly written header. He is saying hunt-and-peck is terrible for productive flow and thinking and that touch-typing is important and valuable.

Even when pairing and taking time to think, obtusely slow typing from a partner is frustrating and distracting for me. If someone can't be bothered to learn how to use their tools well, they should find something to do they actually _want_ to be good at.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> blocking: writing blog posts</comment>


Ask HN: What does the software industry without patents REALLY look like? - <AUTHOR>

Keep in mind, we have an example of a software industry where patent use is virtually non-existent - HFT and quantitative finance almost exclusively use tight confidentiality and trade secrets to operate.
Without patents, do new compression algorithms, data structures, etc stay trade secrets only to be used in situations where they can be protected?
Not defending just making a probing question at a weak spot of the argument that I haven't seen seriously confronted. <comment><USER2> The software industry without patents would look almost exactly like the current software industry, but with fewer lawsuits and less FUD.

Because of the triple-damages liability for willful infringement, patenting your idea is a great way to make sure that nobody will pay any attention to it or make any use of it whatsoever. At Microsoft software engineers are actually forbidden from reading patents; only the lawyers are allowed to do that, specifically to protect engineers from knowingly using a technique described in a patent. All infringement will therefore be inadvertent.

Abandoning software patents, then, means that people would still carry on reinventing unpublished ideas in their own projects, just as they currently do and always will. Nothing would really change for big companies anyway, since they basically only build up patent portfolios to defend against each other's patent portfolios, but they'd waste less of their engineers' time writing up pointless patent claims that nobody else will ever read.</comment>


The Startup Factory announces Fall 2013 Class - <AUTHOR> http://wraltechwire.com/startup-factory-picks-6-emerging-ventures-for-latest-group/12817085/

<comment><USER2> I am really excited to be a part of the Fall 2013 class. The startup community and ecosystem in the Raleigh/Durham area has grown significantly over the past several years. The diversity of this class as well as the distance some of them traveled to be a part of it is a testament to the support and opportunities available.

This is going to be fun!

</comment><comment><USER3> Moving into the Raleigh-Durham area from Long Island, New York has been an absolute blast. The community here is overly willing to help in any way, shape, or form. As new entrepreneurs, I feel as though we couldn't be in better situation to learn and grow.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is basically the coolest thing I've ever been a part of, and I can't believe it's only been one week out of 12. What an amazing experience.

</comment><comment><USER5> Great group of startups here in Durham for the 4th session in 2 years. Come on down and join the party!</comment>