Welcome to Episode 50 of The HockeyStick Show. I’m Miko Pawlikowski, and this week I sat down with Peter Farkas to dig into the messy reality of modern infrastructure, open source licensing, and what really happens when companies try to protect their products from hyperscalers.
We walked through his recent LinkedIn post, the story behind it, the unintended consequences of “defensive licensing,” and what the future might look like for teams trying to build sustainable businesses on top of open source.
Cloud Providers, Open Source, and the Licensing Squeeze
Peter started by explaining the background behind his post: why companies shift to restrictive licenses like SSPL, what they’re trying to defend against, and why it often snowballs into confusion for both users and vendors.
He shared examples of how cloud providers respond, how this changes the economics of running a service, and why certain licensing decisions end up punishing the wrong people. The conversation unraveled into a broader point about how blurry the line has become between infrastructure, managed services, and full-blown products.
Why “Open Source Alternatives” Aren’t Always What They Seem
We also talked about the wave of drop-in replacements and forks that appear every time a company tightens its license. Peter explained the real costs behind “just run it yourself,” the pressure it puts on engineering teams, and why some of these forks still depend heavily on the original maintainers.
Underneath it all is a bigger question: who actually pays for the innovation that everyone wants to remain free?
The Realities of Building a Business Around Infrastructure
Peter broke down the challenges of turning infrastructure into a viable product: operational burden, attack surfaces, compatibility expectations, and the never-ending stream of breaking changes that users don’t see.
The theme kept coming back to sustainability. What does fair monetization look like? How do you protect your company without alienating your community? And what options do founders realistically have when cloud giants can replicate their service within months?
Thanks for listening!
