Hard pass on the core concept here. I’m really enjoying a community of people just posting because they want to, it’s like the internet I grew up with and loved. Why would would you want to bring in people trying to squeeze a buck out of that? Growth isn’t an inherently good thing

What I have considered, though, is making parts of it open source, and keeping only the “secret sauce” proprietary. The open source parts would be stuff that could be used to build similar software for other niches of the same target industry, whereas the super specific niche stuff and all the regulation compliance stuff (much of which is just for that one niche anyway - other niches have different regulations) would be proprietary.

This seems perfectly reasonable and I wish you the best of luck. Just don’t expect anyone to provide the infrastructure for your proprietary secret sauce for free!

They would unplug our isp provided modem and take it to bed with them, so I tracked down another one from the manufacturer and copied the eeprom from theirs onto it. It was a simpler time :p

I’m old enough you have to replace “cracking neighbors wifi” with cloning our modem and “youtube” with funny pictures from irc homies, but same. Working around internet access restrictions was a milestone between fun things I could do with computers and how they really worked

That was somewhat facetious and self-aggrandizing, “cracking” something isn’t always possible or necessary. If your service was unique/useful enough, I would contribute to reverse engineering enough of that backend to replicate its functionality. More likely I’d just refuse to use it and support open alternatives

Unsolicited advice though, giving stuff away generates a huge amount of goodwill that can be way more useful and rewarding than revenue. Contributors instead of employees, love instead of money, place and purpose instead of points in your bank account. I’m not wealthy by any means, but I’m comfortable enough and haven’t had to buy a laptop since high school

Congrats, pretty sure “mom took away my internet” is the primary entry point for IT professionals

Forge-ayo

Think hispanic

I see this as a feature not bug, and tbh kinda resent those who hoard information and try to extract wealth from it. Extremely rude to the giants whose shoulders your work is built on. I’m the person who’s going to crack and redistribute your shit as soon as you publish it, nice to meet you :)

Zip it, snitch!

15 years ago you were naive enough to believe their bullshit and public perception was still important to their success. “Embrace, extend, extinguish” isn’t healthy participation in open source. Think M$ was the one who actually stated things that way, but google was absolutely playing the same game

Brakes are obviously essential, cruise control isn’t mandatory, lighting doesn’t require a single pcb. Wipers can be pretty simple but are already one of the more expensive/annoying things to fix on a car, a mandated screen (and inevitable infotainment system along with it) to make up for lack of visibility over a mandated high beltline is just… not something I want to deal with. And you know the surveillance state’s gonna tap the feeds from those millions of cameras and stick us with the bill for the hardware to do it, way too juicy source of data not to

Just a screen, camera, sensor, relay, 20ft of wire, nbd right? It’s not like that makes stuff more expensive or harder to work on or anything

Buddy my whole car was $500 and I have an insatiable desire to keep it that way. Less components not more across the board please. I don’t know what kind of bougie-ass bubble you’re living in where a cheap car is $20k, but I sure hope it pops while we’ve still got a planet

Clankers shouldn’t be allowed to drive at all, much less mandated. I miss when cars were more “dangerous” but cheaper, simpler, and more efficient. My 1994 Toyota pickup will still be running long after the last of these rolling smartphones are bricked by a lack of updates or Certified Service Components. We’ve been through this already on heavy equipment, I’m mad about having to hack tractors and mad people would fall for safety as an excuse to complicate basic tech we rely on and increase dependence on corporations for service

Unfortunately metal boxes are pretty good at keeping the wifi in. Those antenna arrays aren’t just for show. I prefer thin, featureless wall/ceiling mountable panels :)