I worry about the future of web development when I see things that used to be shared openly (logging technology, databases, languages, search indexing tools, etc) one-by-one become startups with a price tag.
By default I wish startups success, but I fear for the long-term implications when each piece of the puzzle (of web development) migrates towards being a business that needs to make money. And that is before you factor in patents and proprietary knowledge and how companies tend to act aggressively when their financial back is up against the wall.
Web dev will only stay open so long as web devs fight to keep it that way.
>> I worry about the future of web development when I see things that used to be shared openly... one-by-one become startups with a price tag
I'm not worried. I develop for the web, and nearly every piece of my tech stack - language, editor, database, server, browser rendering engine - is open source. My skills are in such high demand that my team can't find people to join it. I feel zero pressure to use anything closed-source.
>> Web dev will only stay open so long as web devs fight to keep it that way.
I do agree with this. I think it's unwise to develop for platforms like iOS, however popular they may be. It's a form of sharecropping.
Let's keep working on the web, where every computer and mobile device is on equal footing, and we don't have to rewrite our app to reach new customers.
I worry about the future of web development when I see things that used to be shared openly (logging technology, databases, languages, search indexing tools, etc) one-by-one become startups with a price tag.
This has been the way of the computer industry for as long as there has been a computer industry. People attempt to commercialize and sell products. You don't really think that 2012 is the beginning of when people tried to sell a database server as a software product, do you?
I worry about the future of web development when I see things that used to be shared openly (logging technology, databases, languages, search indexing tools, etc) one-by-one become startups with a price tag.
Only this morning did I see the job advert for Swiftype: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4442562
By default I wish startups success, but I fear for the long-term implications when each piece of the puzzle (of web development) migrates towards being a business that needs to make money. And that is before you factor in patents and proprietary knowledge and how companies tend to act aggressively when their financial back is up against the wall.
Web dev will only stay open so long as web devs fight to keep it that way.