Release the first version of an open source project a little broken on purpose; nothing recruits collaborators like something they know how to fix.

Added to korrents 5 Sept 2026 · How quotes work · Something wrong? Tell us

Where this collides

• Cannot both be true

  The MVP as a hacky product built to validate an idea no longer works: in a saturated market you have to build something substantially better from day one.

  Hansson says to release the first version of an open source project a little broken on purpose, because nothing recruits collaborators like something they know how to fix. Artman says the hacky validation build no longer works and that a saturated market demands something substantially better from day one. These are opposite instructions about what to ship first, and the gap between them is open source versus a product with competitors.

Shared subject first, then similar wording. They may agree or disagree.

• A business making hundreds of millions from an open source project owes it money or contribution, and can be refused its trademarks if it gives neither. MMMatt Mullenweg26 Sept 2024open source
• A company that will not accept a project’s terms is free to go and use a more permissive project instead. MMMatt Mullenweg26 Sept 2024open source
• A few hundred dollars a month is nothing to a company and transformative to a project, so engineers should be the ones asking their employers to pay it. DDDrew DeVault22 Aug 2018open source
• A licence is only the floor of open source; what keeps a project alive is an ethos of contribution that no licence can compel. MMMatt Mullenweg17 Sept 2024open source
• A proprietary language licensed from Microsoft had zero chance in the JavaScript ecosystem: TypeScript had to be open source or nobody would come. AHAnders Hejlsberg13 May 2026open source

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