Item — HN Reader

> having a company with VC funding using it as its base helps ensure that if ProseMirror got abandoned, it'd likely get picked back up by TipTap or some other interested party.

On the contrary, the company with VC may be a bummer after some years and the VC wanted to get ROI: prices started to increase (or appear), change of strategy and abandon/remix the tool, close the store…

Being free and open source surely helps.

1 comments

Yeah, I share that concern about outsourcing a core competency to a VC funded startup. The risk of abandonment means you need to be ready to fork & maintain all the Tiptap code if they go closed source or shut down.

I totally understand the fear when VC money comes on the table, but not every open source project can be in the Apache or Linux Foundation ;) Most of the money in those organizations also comes from the big names, not from indie hackers sponsoring for them. A lot of people think that open source means free because you don't have to pay for it, but that's wrong.

I think the future of an open source project and the company behind it really depends on the founders. If open source is really in their DNA, they will fight for it. If everything goes wrong, at least the open source code will remain. The closed code will most likely disappear with the company.

Thanks for your feedback! We really need people like you to point out when things are going in the wrong direction. It's often a difficult balance between making money and giving back to the community. So we need your outside perspective!