All we have to fear is FUD itself

Oxide and Friends · 25 Apr 2024 · 1h 21m · Episode 12

What this episode covers

Hosts Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal discuss the recent controversy surrounding HashiCorp's accusations against the OpenTofu project, analyzing the incident as a classic example of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) used by entrenched incumbents against upstarts. They trace the history of FUD from IBM vs. Amdahl to Microsoft's tactics against open source, and examine the broader industry trend of 'source-available' licensing changes by companies like Redis and HashiCorp as a response to diminishing returns on mature open-source products. The conversation concludes with reflections on the sustainability of open-source business models and the inevitability of creative destruction in the software industry.

Mentioned

Companies
HashiCorp, MongoDB, InfoWorld, IBM, Amdahl, Microsoft, NetApp, BlueArc, Oracle, VMware, Linux Foundation
Products
OpenTofu, Terraform, Redis, Valkey
Also
Matt Asay

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