Thoughts on open-source software

specbug

I love Nothing’s core philosophies - community & transparency. Extending on these (and as a proponent of open-source software (OSS)) I would love to be able to contribute to Nothing’s product building at level 0. I think it could be a win-win situation if Nothing can open-source their products codebase (or at least a part of it, as it makes sense for them to have proprietary solutions for their concepts).

Akshansh

1 pro I find in OSS is that developers would love to work in your company as they can build in public and showcase their work through their GitHub repo which might help them in future.
As hiring developers and retaining them is a tough task, this might give edge to a company.

Robert

While I love the idea of open source software and would be utterly delighted if any part of a Nothing products codebase was open sourced, it’s just not feasible. While they seem to be wanting to take a community focused approach as a company, ultimately they are commercially focused, releasing their codebase would give competitors an advantage.

While this is ok if you’re a powerhouse like Microsoft, it would just lead to copycat products that steal the idea. Can you imagine if google open sourced their software for their home hub? Within months you would have dozens of knock off smart assistant at devices. Again, while this might be ok for a large tech titan, for a upstart like Nothing it would be shooting themselves in the foot.

Shankar

I think it would be a win-win scenario for everyone if ‘Nothing’ could make certain codes like device tree, kernel source and vendor blobs open-source (along with product launch) to leverage the attention of custom ROM devs, enthusiasts and related communities which can result in huge indirect marketing.