@freakboy3742 @glyph @jacob @sgillies What I want to do is build software that vertically integrates with our open source tools, and sell that software to companies that are already using Ruff, uv, etc. Alternatives to things that companies already pay for today.

@freakboy3742 @glyph @jacob @sgillies An example of what this might look like (we may not do this, but it's helpful to have a concrete example of the strategy) would be something like an enterprise-focused private package registry. A lot of big companies use uv. We spend time talking to them. They all spend money on private package registries, and have issues with them. We could build a private registry that integrates well with uv, and sell it to those companies.

@freakboy3742 @glyph @jacob @sgillies But the core of what I want to do is this: build great tools, hopefully people like them, hopefully they grow, hopefully companies adopt them; then sell software to those companies that represents the natural next thing they need when building with Python. Hopefully we can build something better than the alternatives by playing well with our OSS, and hopefully we are the natural choice if they're already using our OSS.

@charliermarsh @freakboy3742 @jacob @sgillies I certainly hope you succeed. I think there are ways that this could go bad, but I don’t think it *needs* to go bad. There are some significant challenges on the way there which need to be addressed as they come, there’s nothing to do or say right now, today, that can fully address those concerns

@charliermarsh Thanks for the response - and totally understand the limitations around sharing specific plans. The general direction definitely sounds promising; but there's a big gap between here and execution :-)

In terms of messaging - I've missed where you've said these things; the one place it isn't laid out (AFAICT) is the Astral blog/website (beyond high level “we believe in fast Python tools" stuff). A "Why should you trust uv/ruff/Astral?” post would go a long way.

@glyph @freakboy3742 @jacob @sgillies Thank you I appreciate this

@charliermarsh @freakboy3742 @jacob @sgillies in a way I feel bad being critical! You and the team are doing great work, I don’t begrudge you for taking money for it, and my concerns are more like “when the investors push Charlie out for poor EBITDA performance in a down market cycle, how is the new management going to be incentivized to maintain things in a way that serves the community’s interest”, which is obviously at least a few years away