Wanted to take a moment to respond to address some of the themes in these comments.
I am a former Red Hatter, and am passionate about Open Source. I would also be lying if I didn’t acknowledge that part of the reason we started HarperDB was to make money. That said, an equally large part of why @kylebernhardy
and @zaxharperdb
and I created HarperDB is because we are extremely passionate about technology, the developer community and building awesome products. Our favorite moments at HarperDB is when we hear from the community about how much they love using our product, especially when it’s the free version. It’s incredibly exciting for us and it motivates our entire small team to keep chugging away. Our entire team is motivated to build great products that developers love, that is what gets us out of bed every day.
That said the reality is that building great software costs money. HarperDB Cloud costs us about $8,000/month to support our 434 freemium users. We spend about $2 million a year building HarperDB. People all over the world love our product and we want to continue to build, develop, and support a product they care about.
Before launching the company, I very much wanted HarperDB to be OSS, and I still hold out hope that someday we will make that work. I carefully researched database companies in the market before launching the product and found that OSS database companies were struggling to stay alive, and as much as I wanted to make HarperDB OSS I wanted to ensure that we could build a lasting company, with a great product, great service, and take care of our amazing employees.
In the interim we open source as much of the ecosystem of our products as we can, we contribute to open source projects where we can, and we try and shine a spot light on amazing open source projects like AlaSQL and others where we can.
Hopefully all that gives some context as to why HarperDB currently utilizes a freemium/premium model.
The other point I wanted to make is I don’t really understand the desire to troll posts like these? It’s not as if we are forcing you to use our products, read our blogs, or engage with our marketing? We are firm believers in choice and think people should use the product that they want, that’s right for the job, and with a company that share their core values.
Having worked in the startup world for a very longtime I’ve become accustom to trolling, rejection, and people hating on things I am passionate about. That said, our team is a small group of highly dedicated people who really care about what they are doing. What’s the value in attacking them? How is it hurting you personally? How is their passion and excitement a negative impact on your life?
I’ve seen a lot of products that I think are stupid or lame, but unless the company itself is filled with rude, obnoxious, misogynistic, or racist folks I never feel the need to attack them? I’ve come to accept that trolling often comes from a place of self-hatred, self-loathing, deep-seated insecurity etc.… and as a result I’ve grown to have empathy and compassion for the folks who are doing it, but I would ask you to examine oneself if it’s a behavior you engage in regularly, you might find that you could live a happier more fulfilled life without the trolling.
Rant finished. Happy to discuss more offline with anyone if that is more comfortable. stephen@harperdb.io.
SG
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Wanted to take a moment to respond to address some of the themes in these comments.
I am a former Red Hatter, and am passionate about Open Source. I would also be lying if I didn’t acknowledge that part of the reason we started HarperDB was to make money. That said, an equally large part of why @kylebernhardy and @zaxharperdb and I created HarperDB is because we are extremely passionate about technology, the developer community and building awesome products. Our favorite moments at HarperDB is when we hear from the community about how much they love using our product, especially when it’s the free version. It’s incredibly exciting for us and it motivates our entire small team to keep chugging away. Our entire team is motivated to build great products that developers love, that is what gets us out of bed every day.
That said the reality is that building great software costs money. HarperDB Cloud costs us about $8,000/month to support our 434 freemium users. We spend about $2 million a year building HarperDB. People all over the world love our product and we want to continue to build, develop, and support a product they care about.
Before launching the company, I very much wanted HarperDB to be OSS, and I still hold out hope that someday we will make that work. I carefully researched database companies in the market before launching the product and found that OSS database companies were struggling to stay alive, and as much as I wanted to make HarperDB OSS I wanted to ensure that we could build a lasting company, with a great product, great service, and take care of our amazing employees.
In the interim we open source as much of the ecosystem of our products as we can, we contribute to open source projects where we can, and we try and shine a spot light on amazing open source projects like AlaSQL and others where we can.
Hopefully all that gives some context as to why HarperDB currently utilizes a freemium/premium model.
The other point I wanted to make is I don’t really understand the desire to troll posts like these? It’s not as if we are forcing you to use our products, read our blogs, or engage with our marketing? We are firm believers in choice and think people should use the product that they want, that’s right for the job, and with a company that share their core values.
Having worked in the startup world for a very longtime I’ve become accustom to trolling, rejection, and people hating on things I am passionate about. That said, our team is a small group of highly dedicated people who really care about what they are doing. What’s the value in attacking them? How is it hurting you personally? How is their passion and excitement a negative impact on your life?
I’ve seen a lot of products that I think are stupid or lame, but unless the company itself is filled with rude, obnoxious, misogynistic, or racist folks I never feel the need to attack them? I’ve come to accept that trolling often comes from a place of self-hatred, self-loathing, deep-seated insecurity etc.… and as a result I’ve grown to have empathy and compassion for the folks who are doing it, but I would ask you to examine oneself if it’s a behavior you engage in regularly, you might find that you could live a happier more fulfilled life without the trolling.
Rant finished. Happy to discuss more offline with anyone if that is more comfortable. stephen@harperdb.io.