For me the most compelling argument here is that you are paying to continue to rely on the stated assumption.
It is assumed that the developers will continue to give something for free, but that will not be true forever. With support, it will be true for longer.
The big - really big - downside for me is the CF termsofservice which suggest that any data pushed through their service is perpetually licensed to them:
> 2. LICENSE GRANT TO CLOUDFLARE
> By submitting, posting, or publishing your content, suggestions, enhancement requests, recommendations, feedback, information, data, or comments (“Content”) to any Website or Online Service, you are granting Cloudflare a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free right and license (with the right to sublicense) to use, incorporate, exploit, display, perform, reproduce, distribute, and prepare derivative works of your Content.
No it does not. Twice already you've written false information, and thrice already you've been corrected by others. Why not read the actual texts before posting?
> THESE TERMS DO NOT APPLY TO YOUR ACCESS AND USE OF THE CLOUDFLARE PRODUCTS AND SERVICES THAT ARE PROVIDED UNDER THE SELF-SERVE SUBSCRIPTION AGREEMENT, THE ENTERPRISE SUBSCRIPTION AGREEMENT, OR OTHER WRITTEN AGREEMENT SIGNED BETWEEN YOU AND CLOUDFLARE (IF APPLICABLE).
ZTNA tunnels only work with a cloudflare account, so they're subject to the self-serve subscription agreement.
> You and your End Users (as such term is defined in the Privacy Policy) will retain all right, title and interest in and to any data, content, code, video, images or other materials of any type that you or your End Users transmit to or through the Services (collectively, “Customer Content”) in the form provided to Cloudflare. Subject to the terms of this Agreement, you hereby grant us a non-exclusive, fully sublicensable, worldwide, royalty-free right to collect, use, copy, store, transmit, modify and create derivative works of Customer Content, in each case to the extent necessary to provide the Services.
I once attended a short workshop where the person presenting encouraged us to switch between two modes of reading away from sub-vocalizing and into pattern recognition. The result was much faster reading without loss of understanding.
He didn't use those terms but adopting them from this thread - I learned that day that these really are two distinct modes.
IMO it adds a lot: the article is about cuts from the diary, the result being that the picture is distorted. This is half the point of the link isn't it?
This is why I don't like open sourcing my projects anymore. Someone else with more resources just forks it and makes profits, thinking that merely acknowledging me pays my bills.
For years, ollama didn't acknowledge llama.cpp and r/localllama found it weird until they finally mentioned llama.cpp on their page, but the damage is done: most apps that support local LLMs only support ollama or LM Studio API, not the original llama.cpp.
Choose your license well. If you are using a permissive licence (MIT, Apache, BSD, etc...) you are begging for it. If that's what you want (and it may be what you want), go for it, but don't expect it to pay the bills.
If you are using a copyleft license, especially AGPL, you may not get paid either, but you may get valuable contributions in return. It is also a good way to avoid having big companies profit from your work, if that's what you want.
If you want to make money but still want to open source, use a non-free "source available" licence (ex: "non-commercial"). They tend to be unpopular in the open source community and it is probably not the best way to get known.
And then you can have dual-licences, like GPL + commercial. Qt is probably the most popular software using that scheme.
But I don't really understand the people who publish software under a permissive licences and get forked by some tech giant and complain. That's what permissive licenses are for!
From the POV of an indie dev selling closed-source binaries, would a source-available license gain any goodwill in this space? And how would you tackle pricing?
I don't really have a say since I don't buy nor sell software. As a technical guy, I may have an influence, but usually, finance decides and not always the way I'd like.
That being said, I highly value having access to the source code, even under a restrictive license. The source code is the best documentation, it doesn't lie. Also being able to make small changes, recompile with different libraries, etc... but for me, the "documentation" aspect is the most important. I don't do security, but I guess being able to audit the code is a good thing too.
For me, open source goes beyond the "freedom" aspect. Also, AFAIK, most commercial game engines are "source available" too.
I would prefer the BSL with some sort of trial period grant and source available to closed source.
Other nice thing about BSL is it converts to an Open Source license after 3-4 years which addresses the concern “what if the software vendor goes out of business”. You can support it yourself or another vendor can pick it up and support it after that time period.
Even the copyleft licenses need lengthy costly lawsuits to enforce them, so they aren't that useful for many developers who can't afford to pay lawyers for ages.
> This is why I don't like open sourcing my projects anymore. Someone else with more resources just forks it and makes profits, thinking that merely acknowledging me pays my bills.
Then I would submit that you are picking the wrong license. The whole point of the GPL/AGPL family of licenses is to ensure that they can't just do this. They will be required to publish their changes, which benefits the original project (you). It's not a perfect solution, but it helps a great deal. The answer to this problem is not to close up and/or go proprietary.
The GPL family of licenses doesn't say anything about profits, competition, giving back or publishing changes at all, just that downstream users (not the original project) have to get access to the source code. Those users probably won't bother to do that though.
then don't. the point of open source is not to earn money or profit. it's to have the software open so people can inspect it, be inspired by it, trust it, modify it without contacting you and possibly copy it. imagine sharing your idea with the world but not wanting anyone to implement or capitalize on it. it's an impossible ask.
i'm a bald head grey beard, at least in the 90's when we shared software it was for the reasons we outlined, there was no github stars, there was no trying to line a job. it was a true gift and pay it forward sort of thing to the world. it's been almost lost due to money, if you need to earn a living, start a business, get a job and make your open source project a hobby. don't mix them together.
> at least in the 90's when we shared software it was for the reasons we outlined...
With all due respect, that's not how most open source software is today [1]. A lot of CS students on the job market need Github stars or green tiles in case the employers check their page. So many open source projects are done only to boost resumes, not for the reasons you mentioned. Not to mention a lot of projects start as open source to lure users, only to become closed at some point (the notorious langchain is one example).
[1]: with the exception of some huge projects like ffmpeg, llama.cpp, etc.
IIRC, only modifications to the existing code, not all of the source code, for example if you added a proprietary dependency, or a new source code file, that doesn't need publishing.
- If your primary goal is to release open software that stays open, then release under a copyleft license (GPL)
- If your primary goal is to release software for no-strings-attached use (including incorporation into commercial services) then use a permissive license (MIT, BSD, etc.)
Interesting. So if you just configure continue with Mistral Medium 3 as the chat model and codestral as the autocomplete, you probably have exactly this. This is the setup I already use.
If that were the case, then the posted URL would be pure hype. I think it's more likely that they've developed something that is more bespoke than that. It's totally too hard to say though.
Knowing the enterprise space, my guess is that the only real changes are hardcoding continue to use only Mistral, and tying it into some sort of central enterprise licensing service. Holding back some novel models just for enterprise use seems unlikely, as does developing some novel agentic capabilities within Continue.
Enterprise deals are usually around compliance and security primarily. Companies want centralized billing and to be sure that their developers only use "sanctioned" AI and other tech.
That's very possible. You can already do that via the platform api easily (just feeding it your github project), so a light UI around that api would be very easy.
Originally as an experiment in using non-US services, as my company is not a US company and the possibility of tariffs on digital services is not at all unrealistic. The exercise was really enlightening. Not to derail the conversation the TLDR was that in some areas it was easy to move off US services, while in others (github) there are almost no alternatives.
I do have access to US models via Kagi to play around with and use for things Mistral doesn't work on. I've been meaning to try command a too, but haven't gotten around to it. I will say that the new mistral medium model is surprisingly good, though I've only just started using it. Codestral is definitely behind other models.
What feature of github is lacking in competetitors ?
I wouldnt use an AI LLM that has 50% of chance of me needing to reprompt or try another model, I prefer using direclty the best model directly. But yeah US vs. Europe is a real concern
Well that tidbit of information was definitely sweeped under the rug.
Strikes me as a weird combo to have a fork of a VS Code/JetBrains extension be a completely walled off enterprise only deal. Any other apps out there having success with this sort of model?
I feel like we share interests and location. The long-tailed tits in Wimbledon present no trouble for Merlin my Samsung phone, but I've never seen a nightingale round here.
Maybe look at Quarto? Almost every project I start now begins with `quarto project create`. From there I can pivot the material into HTML, .docx, PDF, .PPTX, Typst, LaTeX, and all of them simultaneously.
VSCode and RStudio Desktop both have visual editor components, although they are not perfect. Positron is another editor that is data science specific built on top of VSCode that has Quarto rendering support.
There isn't an 'on-the-fly' rendering component for Quarto per se, but using the preview mode it will re-render a preview watching for file changes. A nice GUI editor for Quarto is definitely something people have been asking for. Closest equivalent would probably be Overleaf or Typst web editors?
HN is fickle, it'll revert, faster if you don't mention it.
I have a couple of "proprietary" pipelines that I'd love to replace, and this also gave me an idea.
For instance when I want to publish a screenshot from windows to my fediverse homeserver, I want it to be as few kilobytes as possible, as I've run a homeserver and the storage needs are obnoxious, so I do my part. Windows takes massive screenshots, embarrassing even by windows 95 bitmap screenshot standards. So win+shift+s, crop selection, win - ms <enter>, shift+insert, ctrl+shift+x, file->save as JPEG, name, enter.
As few as three years ago if I cropped right I could paste the clipboard JPEG and all was well. It doesn't take me long but every time I do it I get three more grey hairs. And I take a lot of screenshots. 2,209 in my screenshot folder. did you know windows saves all your screenshots? they used to be ephemeral.
anyhow i have a bunch of screwy things similar to but not as "simple" as that example. Audio work, text work, data manipulation.
It is assumed that the developers will continue to give something for free, but that will not be true forever. With support, it will be true for longer.