Ask HN: Is it me, or are more and more YC companies open source?

[dkindler]

I've noticed that many of the startups in the YC S23 batch are open source. Is that correct? If so, why has this become a trend?

[version_five]

* marketing term

* bait and switch

* hold over from zero interest rates - get users and worry later about monetization

* emerging legit business models that use open core

[freedomben]

Exactly. Also, nowadays being "open source" is one of the only ways to gain technical-minded customers. The level of skepticism against closed-source things is high (and for good reasons, between vendor lock-in, guaranteed future enshittification which means you want a fork option, etc). Personally, I won't even consider adopting something that isn't open source anymore unless it's a product that I (or my company) really needs, and even then I take steps to avoid hard dependence.

[whyagaintango]

And it gives the feeling anytime one can self/diy. Like kubernetes. Most can't aa it is too complex(and unnecessary) but gives a safety feeling.

[simple-thoughts]

No idea. Open source seems to come and go in waves. It has pros and cons as a business model. Personally I prefer working on open source because my GitHub becomes my resume, whereas in closed source interviews are needed to determine basic skills.

[nativeit]

I have zero empirical data to back it up but as a freelance I.T. consultant, my gut instinct is that part of the trend (at least within the realm of I.T. infrastructure/security/management that I am most familiar with) has to do with increasing development of derivatives from other OSS projects, which generally involves adoption of the parent project’s license, in whole or in part, so there’s a function of OSS spawning more OSS.

It could be an interesting data analysis project to work out some mechanism for establishing OSS “family trees”.

[mrklol]

There are also more and more people getting paid for doing open source work.

[thrown1212]

It’s a cheap, viable, vetted user acquisition model. For most startups it’s about the best CAC you can get without investing in channel development. Close enough to none of them are OSI open source, it’s all source available or open core, laying the cynicism bare.

[muzani]

There's a trending model where they give away the magic for free and make money off services built around it. Often those services can be things like backup and monitoring that contain the lock in.

[ausudhz]

"trending" suse and red hat have been doing it for decades. Canonical too, among many others

[spacebanana7]

With the ability to get developer attention through HN and the startup ecosystem, YC has a competitive advantage in the open source business.

[pyb]

A few of these startups are copycats of successful tools. Open source helps them be a 'virtuous' copycat.

[ashishbijlani]

This is something we have noticed as well in our supply-chain security analysis of Github repos. It could be "build it in the open" philosophy as well that offers complete transparency and security audibility.

[vince_liu]

* cheap CAC * high customer engagement

both leads to high probability of finding PMF

[jqpabc123]

Free labor.

[quickthrower2]

You were downvoted but there is some truth to this.