Make assumptions about the ecosystem explicit

Posted Sep 7, 2025 8:16 UTC (Sun) by k3ninho (subscriber, #50375)
Parent article: Rug pulls, forks, and open-source feudalism

> The problem often comes down to the simple fact that companies have to answer to their investors, and that often leads to pressure to relicense the software they have created in order to increase revenue.

There's an assumption hiding here that drives the whole fork and/or rugpull situation: action by the company won't affect the surrounding ecosystem, that's to say actions to raise revenue won't deter free-at-point-of-use customers from contributing fixes or features and will definitely convert them to paying licensees.

Companies have to answer to shareholders but they have to do this within the scope of the customers and cashflow of their business -- and these rugpulls and forking events alter the ecosystem around a company in ways the investors won't expect. The systems-thinking view or a power analysis would raise these as risks not to mess around with. There's always room for "destroying customer relationships or harming base resources that your business relies on -- those are things which will cause your business to fail, even if your investors insist you do them."

K3n.