Yes, but Facebook said it will not monetize WhatsApp, and something similar when they bought WhatsApp Instagram.

We all know how that turned out to be

History repeats itself, the above two are the recent incidents that comes to my mind

And you will never need a FB account for Oculus

Most people will do things when in difficulties that they swear they would never do if asked while comfortable.

no they're not, a large number are - maybe 13% https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/science/13-people-are-path... , what it is is that most people just aren't that self-aware or have a better opinion of themselves than is perhaps warranted.

So let me make clear here, if I ever start a company based on open source principles and it looks like I am going to get squeezed out of business by Amazon if I keep sticking to those principles I will probably abandon those principles (unless I'm already a billionaire and have something really cool I want to work on anyway) because damned if I would let Amazon beat me. The chance of my abandoning those principles will correlate closely to how bad my finances will be after losing out to Amazon.

On the other hand if I build up a big enough company and start making money off of using open source technologies as a service for other technologists I hope I would support the open source projects from which I was benefiting.

> So let me make clear here, if I ever start a company based on open source principles and it looks like I am going to get squeezed out of business by Amazon if I keep sticking to those principles I will probably abandon those principles (unless I'm already a billionaire and have something really cool I want to work on anyway) because damned if I would let Amazon beat me. The chance of my abandoning those principles will correlate closely to how bad my finances will be after losing out to Amazon.

If you want to keep this option open, then make no such promises or (perhaps better) formulate the promises in a way that is aligned to the options that you do want to keep open for the company.

I don't really see myself as ever wanting to start a company under open source principles as I believe the whole Elastic / Amazon situation is highly instructive in this regards, at any rate none of the projects in my big projects list relies on being open source for gaining traction.

Let's make a gentlemens' bet. If Deno is still completely free in 5 years, I'll give you $500. You up for that?

A gentleman’s bet with $500 is just a bet.

Isn't a "gentleman's bet" one with no bookie / office / dealer / etc?

Damn. Looks like I have lost a few of these.

> If Deno is still completely free in 5 years, I'll give you $500. You up for that?

Heck, sign me up. Who wouldn't be up for that? What's the downside supposed to be?

It wasn’t clear enough that if it isn’t, you’ll be expected to give me $500?

Maybe if you had included that in the terms of the bet.

You'll lose your money. Deno will be free. DenoPro won't be though.

Part of what VC investment means is that this is not his decision to make anymore.