
On apps that get acquired - gbugniot
http://inessential.com/2015/12/07/on_apps_that_get_acquired
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Doctor_Fegg
> You also can’t go by whether or not it’s open source, because open source
> apps get abandoned.

But if it's open source, you can (FSVO "can", depending on your skillset) fix
critical problems yourself.

Let's say I get Mailborg for $10 and move my mail over to it. Mailborg gets
acquired. Dropborg eventually closes Mailborg. Next month, Apple releases OS X
10.12 and something breaks. I'm SOL.

Or I get open-source Thunderborg. Borgzilla stops development of Thunderborg.
Next month, Apple releases OS X 10.12, and something breaks.

No matter. I'm still not SOL. Either I have a chance of fixing it, or more
likely, someone smarter than me will find a fix and post it, maybe even with a
new binary.

I'm no Stallmanite, but this is the whole origin myth of free software, for
goodness' sake.

~~~
kelnos
Chances are still pretty low, however. I used to be a long-time open source
maintainer, and I definitely found (based on my own experience, and the
experience of others trying to get started on projects I've worked on) that
the barrier to entry to almost any non-trivial code base is fairly high. And
debugging is usually more difficult than adding a new feature.

Open source communities also don't "just happen". It's pretty rare for someone
to throw some code in a GitHub responsibility, wander off, and later find that
it's suddenly become actively (or even passively) maintained.

Unless it's an app that's mission-critical to my life and there aren't any
alternatives (even if they're not as good), I can't see myself digging in to
fix bugs. And even then, it still feels like a hard sell.

I also feel like most apps that people might love enough to even consider
diving into also have server components. If the company running the service
shuts down, that's another barrier to setting up your own (assuming the
backend pieces were even open sourced too!).

Sure, it happens, but those tend to be very very exceptional cases.

~~~
juliendorra
One of those great exception is Erherpad. The open source base helped launch a
community then a full rewrite. Hopefully the hackpad fork will now be merged
or at least some features will be back ported.

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nateberkopec
The advantage of an open-source app is that there will almost always be a way
to get your data _out_ of the application/service if it does shut down.

With closed-source/proprietary apps, you're at the mercy of the provider for
getting out any data.

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an4rchy
It would be great if any/all of these developers/companies can guarantee the
app will be around for X days / years after the user _buys_ it. Then it's a
contract and you wont feel bad/betrayed once the app is gone
(acquisition/bankrupt etc)

They can always end of life it after their last sale.

This guarantees the user that it's worth the time/investment, and the company
can always decide to prolong the contract / expiration date.

Software (Best if used by X/XX/XXXX)

------
Albright
Good points here, but let's have a quick look at the examples provided here:

> There are some companies you can rely on: Bare Bones, Panic, and Omni (my
> employer), for instance.

Hmm. Panic killed its early MP3 player Audion not long after Apple started
shipping iTunes in their OS for free [1]. And Omni has allowed their once
mind-blowingly great web browser OmniWeb [2] to wither; though theoretically
still in development, only "test builds" of the latest version have been
available for years, and it doesn't even have its own page on Omni's site
anymore.

The author's point - that software companies discontinuing software sometimes
is a thing that happens regardless of other factors - still stands, but the
companies the author cites as counter-examples are not themselves flawless.

[1]:
[https://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/](https://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/)

[2]: [https://www.omnigroup.com/more](https://www.omnigroup.com/more)

~~~
WoodenChair
Those are two cherry picked extreme examples in the sense that both Audion and
OmniWeb were fighting for markets that Apple moved into in a big way. However,
I think Brent picking any companies at all as "examples of the good guys"
undermines his larger point.

