Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by kollateral 2220 days ago
Upbound seems to still steering the project for the coming years. In fact, I can even say that it's not really open source so long its direction is set by a commercial entity. It's just that the code is open.

I know that it's important that Upbound makes some money so that it can keep maintaining Crossplane (see poor Docker) but it's just we should be careful about what we call things so that the words don't get meaningless..
2 comments
zapita 2220 days ago
Crossplane is open-source. You're moving the goal posts on what is "real open-source" in a way that is not reasonable.

Do you also consider Gitlab or Red Hat products to be "not real open-source"? Because they are also controlled by a single commercial entity, yet nobody seems to question their open-source credentials.

> I know that it's important that Upbound makes some money so that it can keep maintaining Crossplane (see poor Docker) but ...

This is exactly why it's hard for companies like Docker to make money. Giving away a free product is not enough. Open-sourcing all of it is not enough. No, you have to create a bullshit "neutral" governance that ensures small companies like Upbound and Docker are kept in check by Google, Microsoft, IBM, and other giant corporations that can afford to pack committees, hire more contributors, and spend more marketing dollars to associate themselves with the brand.

Those foundations are not about making the projects more open at all. They have become a form of "protection money". Give your project away to a big foundation, indirectly controlled by large corporate sponsors who happen to be your competitors - or see your project sabotaged by people like you calling it "not really open", "evil" and "controlled by the VCs".

link
kollateral 2220 days ago
What I'm saying here is that if one commercial entity controls a project, then it can't ensure that others can trust that one day the feature their product depends on will be gone or changed.

> Do you also consider Gitlab or Red Hat products to be "not real open-source"?

Would you trust Gitlab so much that you'd build your own business on top of its open code and compete with Gitlab? I'd use Gitlab in my company but I wouldn't build on top of its code and hope that the future releases won't break my product.

> This is exactly why it's hard for companies like Docker to make money.

I agree with you on how hard it is for these companies to make money but then don't make money this way, what can I say? I'm just saying that what we call open-source needs to be neutral and that doesn't necessarily mean Google, Microsoft etc. will crush the company. Not a single open source project is crushed by those if they didn't allow it. It's all about competition and they're making a choice. Some say if you can't compete then collaborate (hand off some parts), some just keep working without them; maybe fail and no one hears about them even if it was a great idea or it was too good for those companies to be destroyed.

link
zapita 2220 days ago
> Would you trust Gitlab so much that you'd build your own business on top of its open code and compete with Gitlab? I'd use Gitlab in my company but I wouldn't build on top of its code and hope that the future releases won't break my product.

That's a legitimate concern. But it has nothing to do with whether or not they are "real" open-source.

link
bassamtabbara 2220 days ago
[disclosure: I started the crossplane project and ceo/founder at upbound]

If you look at the governance of Crossplane [1], you'll see the three original maintainers of Crossplane (all Upbound employees) will be bootstrapping the steering committee and have a 2 year term, 2 others are currently being added without upbound affiliation. We believe this bootstrapping period is important to ensure that the project remains true to its vision, and to build trust and rapport with new folks joining the project. After the bootstrap period ends, the community will vote new members in. This is the same way Kubernetes and the CNCF Technical Oversight Committee were bootstrapped.

Upbound will have a commercial solution around Crossplane, but our commercial goals are not at odds with creating a strong open source community with strong governance. For Crossplane to be successful it's going to take a village, this is why we're donating it to the CNCF.

[1] https://github.com/crossplane/crossplane/blob/master/GOVERNA...

link