There are more and more open source DevTools startups. I’ve interviewed dozens. But I am still confused about open source licenses. So I decided to ask questions to two people who actually understand them: my friends Eric and Matt - founders of open source background jobs tool Trigger.dev.

This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.

What we discuss:

• Two Key Questions for License Selection
• What are the benefits of permissive licenses?
• What are the main licenses?
• Why shouldn’t you write your own (open source) license?
• What is Copyleft?
• Post Open Source" Movement

• (00:50) - Open Source Licensing
• (18:18) - Protective Licensing
• (23:12) - Copy Left Concept
• (43:30) - Wordpress

Trigger:

• Eric Allam - https://x.com/maverickdotdev
• Matt Aitken - https://x.com/mattaitken
• Trigger.dev https://trigger.dev/
• JSON Hero https://jsonhero.io/

Licenses

• MIT License https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License - Matt’s “most permissive license”
• Apache-2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_License - “Like MIT but with trademarks”
• FSL / Fair Source License https://fair.io/ - created by Sentry
• Heather Meeker - Open Source Licencing expert https://www.linkedin.com/in/heathermeeker/
• A practical guide to Open Source Licencing https://www.amazon.co.uk/Open-Source-Business-Practical-Licensing/dp/1544737645

References

• Sentry https://sentry.io/welcome/
• Redis https://redis.io/
• Valkey https://valkey.io/
• Clickhouse https://clickhouse.com/
• Background to Continue.dev and PearAI https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/30/y-combinator-is-being-criticized-after-it-backed-an-ai-startup-that-admits-it-basically-cloned-another-ai-startup/

John O'Nolan is the Founder and CEO of Ghost.org. Ghost is an open source blog & newsletter platform. We use them for the Scaling DevTools' blog.

Note: this episode was recorded on 17th October 2024.

We talk about:

• How to communicate the benefits of Open Source to non-developers
• How Ghost manages to align open source and money making
• John's thoughts on the Automattic/Wordpress drama
• Advantages and disadvantages of VC funding and open source
• What would John do with VC dollars

Resources:

• Ghost https://ghost.org/
• John's website https://john.onolan.org/
• The WordPress vs. WP Engine drama, explained https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/07/wordpress-vs-wp-engine-drama-explained/
• Indie Hackers podcast https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/139-john-onolan-of-ghost
• Cursor cursor.com
• Ben Thompson's blog https://stratechery.com/

This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.

Gonto (Martin Gontovnikas) was the 6th employee at Auth0 and helped them grow fast and sell for $6.5billion to Okta.

Now he is the founder of Hypergrowth Partners and helps DevTools grow fast.

We discuss:

• What Auth0 did to become so valuable so fast
• What the best founders do (Guillermo Rauch)
• Different is better than better
• People follow people not brands
• Why bleeding edge matters

Resources

• Why Technical SDRs are the Future of DevTools
  https://playbooks.hypergrowthpartners.com/p/product-advocates-technical-sdrs
• Gonto's website https://gon.to/
• Gonto's Twitter https://twitter.com/mgonto
• Hypergrowth Partners https://www.hypergrowthpartners.com/
• Code to Market https://codetomarket.fm/
• Guillermo Rauch https://x.com/rauchg

This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.

Mike McQuaid and John Britton are cofounders of Workbrew - a tool that gives you the missing features for enterprises running homebrew.

John has previously worked at GitHub and Twilio and is a contributor to Homebrew. Mike has also worked at GitHub as well as being the project lead and longest running maintainer at Homebrew.

We dig into:

• How Homebrew can trace its origins to a pub in London
• How Apple actually work with Homebrew
• How Homebrew managed to grow and scale up
• How Workbrew are avoiding misaligned incentives so common in open source

Links for Mike, John and Workbrew

• Mike McQuaid https://mikemcquaid.com/
• John Britton https://johndbritton.com/
• Workbrew https://workbrew.com/

This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.

Paul Klein is the founder and CEO of Browserbase - one of the fastest growing DevTools in 2024.

Browserbase is a headless browser API focused on helping AI Agent startups.

We dig into:

• Why browser automation?
• How Browserbase hit "VC-market-fit"
• Visionary is revisionist-history
• Tips for hiring your friends
• Why buying a jacket is like buying a devtool
• Building an in-person DevTool in San Francisco
• Making priorities (what Paul doesn’t care about).

Where to find Paul and Browserbase:

• Twitter/X https://x.com/pauljasonklein?lang=en
• LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulkleiniv
• Browserbase https://www.browserbase.com/

References

• Mux acquires Stream Club https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/mux-acquires-stream-club-to-enable-developers-to-build-live-streaming-studios-into-their-applications-301449407.html
• Levelsio on VPSs https://x.com/levelsio/status/1827308534645572015
• Charly Poly https://www.linkedin.com/in/charly-poly/?originalSubdomain=fr
• DevTools Pauls: Paul Butler https://x.com/paulgb?lang=en and Paul Copplestone https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulcopplestone
• Solaris office space https://www.solarissf.com/

To support Scaling DevTools, please check out the Enterprise Ready Conf from WorkOS https://enterprise-ready.com/

In 2017, Rasmus Makwarth sold his previous APM (Application Performance Managment) startup Opbeat to Elastic for an undisclosed amount. Opbeat became Elastic APM, which became a big part of the Elastic Observability solution and Rasmus became Senior Director of Product Management - with a focus on Developer Experience.

Today, Rasmus is the founder and CEO of Bucket.co - a feature flagging tool built for B2B teams. Bucket has raised $5.7m from investors such as Project A and Creandum.

We dig into:

• The realities of fundraising on a deadline
• The role of San Francisco in fundraising - do you need to be there?
• How exit opportunities can come from unexpected sources and the importance of showing up
• The importance of building a great product
• What Rasmus learned at Elastic - one of the biggest DevTools in the world
• Why Bucket is betting on helping engineers at b2b companies understand how users use their features
• The future of product engineering

Where to find Rasmus:

• LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/makwarth/?originalSubdomain=dk
• Twitter/X https://x.com/makwarth
• Bucket https://bucket.co/

References

• Elastic https://elastic.co/
• Opbeat acquisition announcement https://www.elastic.co/blog/welcome-opbeat-to-the-elastic-family
• Shay Banon - founder of Elastic https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimchy/
• Gregory Tademoto - VP Global Business & Corporate Development https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregorytademoto/

To support Scaling DevTools, check out the Enterprise Ready Conf from WorkOS https://enterprise-ready.com/

Sagar is the CEO and co-founder of Speakeasy - an API tooling platform. We talk about the journey of Speakeasy. The challenges of startup life. How they developed the product and how they work with influencers in a surprising way.

• Building relationships with influencers can significantly enhance product development.
• Importance of listening to customers
• Fine line between product and consulting
• The role of documentation in user experience
• Being responsive to customer needs builds long-term relationships.
• The startup journey requires patience and adaptability.

Links:

• Sagar Batchu
• Speakeasy https://www.speakeasy.com/

Check out the Enterprise Ready Conf from WorkOS https://enterprise-ready.com/