Comments on: Joyent To Offer Open Source Version of Slingshot

By: Tim Lucas

Tim Lucas — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 17:39:27 +0000

Licensing this technology seems to stray from your core business of providing hosting infrastructure.

I would have thought that making a truly open-source product with a free-for-all license would have benefited the platform you’ve created and your existing business much more than any commercial licensing fee arrangement will.

Help the world to kick ass by developing and nurturing an truly free platforms, and then when you’ve got a big base of amazing companies doing great things with the tools and platform you developed you’ll no doubt have avenues to monetise it.

Adobe, Google, Apple and many other companies have one up on you in this regard: they understand that you have to help progress the technologies and give back as much as you can, and then through adoption you’ll find business success.

A licensing scheme that says “if you want to make money with this you must pay fees” will only hurt adoption in return for what, in the long term, are measly amounts of money.

By: Kyle

Kyle — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 22:35:48 +0000

Looks like they called you on your bluff guys

http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Flex:Open_Source

By: Dylan

Dylan — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 07:24:01 +0000

I’m very interested in incorporating this into a proposal I’m working on…can you give an idea as to the license costs for commercial applications?

By: David Young

David Young — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 03:14:48 +0000

@Stephen: We’re still working on that part of Slingshot. But this much is true: even if encrypted, a person wanting to get to your code in Slingshot would, given time, be able to get to it. We’ll make it as difficult as possible, but it can’t be impossible.

By: David Young

David Young — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 02:51:54 +0000

@Nick: a Windows version will be available when we launch.

By: Geoff

Geoff — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 00:22:24 +0000

Stephen, I think it’s been mentioned that you could encrypt your application (like is done with Java Bytecode). Someone correct me if I’ve got this wrong.

By: Stephen Caudill

Stephen Caudill — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 22:27:07 +0000

I’d really appreciate it if you guys would answer the question that chad (first comment) and others before him, including Andrew Shebanow have been asking:

What will you do about the security risks involved in distributing the full application source?

furthermore:

As the developer of a closed source system where my code composes a significant portion of the value of my service, why on earth would I want my source to be available to the consumer?

By: Nick

Nick — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 21:21:28 +0000

I’m excited by the announcement, but for somewhat different reasons. I’ve been working on developing local only, desktop based Rails apps for data analysis. This is specifically targeted at users that have highly sensitive data and/or very large volumes of data that can’t be posted on the ‘net. I’ve fooled around with modifying the one-click install to the point that I realize how hard it is to package this stuff up. When you get a Window’s version going, I’d love to hear about it. By the way – the press release is a little misleading (I don’t think intentionally) – on it you say that “Joyent Slingshot enables Rails to break free of the browser.” I think that you might have meant to say, “Joyent Slingshot enables Rails to break free of the internet.” While you could certainly use Rails outside of the browser, if you’re ultimately syncing with a web based application, then in most cases, you still need a browser to get at the data. Best of luck guys.

By: Jamie Wilkinson

Jamie Wilkinson — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 21:03:50 +0000

Slightly off-topic, but any way you guys could turn off Textpattern’s “include comment count in feeds” option?

It causes my feedreader to plunk this article up top every time anyone comments (which may or may not be what you desired). I get all excited for a new Joyeur post, but it’s just the same old :\

By: David Young

David Young — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 20:32:53 +0000

@Kenn: we’re not making distinctions between commercial and non-commercial use under the GPL. There will be a version of Slingshot that is released under the GPL. People can use that, extend it, however they see fit. But they have to provide access to the source of their modifications, extensions if they sell their product. There will be a version of Slingshot distributed under commercial license. It may have Joyent-specific features. We will offer support. Etc.