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by embedding-shape 180 days ago
> Feels like the best case is something like Hashicorp

Wow, that's probably my go-to case of things going south, not "best case scenario". They sold to IBM, a famous graveyard for software, and on the way there changed from FOSS licensing to their own proprietary ones for software the community started to rely on.
1 comments
jbmsf 180 days ago
You're not wrong, but a) most of the badness happened after the founders checked out and b) it's hard to find examples of developer tool companies doing better.
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embedding-shape 180 days ago
You however, are. Hashimoto didn't leave until December 2023, Hashicorp announced the license change August 10, 2023. Also way back in September 2021 they started having staffing issues and stopped accepting community contributions, and also made the questionable choice of going public that same year.

You might be on to something with point B, hard to find good examples of developer tool companies that don't eventually turn sour. However, there are countless examples of successful and still very useful developer tools out there, maybe slapping a company on it and sell a "pro" version isn't the way to go?

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vietthan 178 days ago
I actually would argue that Hashimoto "left" earlier. He "stepped down" from the executive team July 2021 and became an individual contributor then. He likely lost interest/power a long time before 2023.

https://www.hashicorp.com/en/blog/mitchell-s-new-role-at-has...

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jbmsf 179 days ago
Meh. The end of the company many of us admire was a combination of the founders giving up control to the usual villains and the venture business model failing for developer tools. I don't think the specific departure date matters very much; things started to degrade earlier.

As for "slapping a company on it", I agree, but also I don't think we've developed a viable alternative. Python has been limping along with one toolchain or another for my entire career (multiple decades) and it took Astral's very specific approach to create something better. It's fair to ask why they needed to be venture backed, but they clearly are and the lack of successful alternatives is telling.

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