Building this allows them to reduce the subsidy that is perpetual software licen...

jdvh · 2025-03-16T15:25:21 1742138721

In exchange for perpetual development and maintenance costs. Total cost of ownership doesn't go down by rolling your own in-house.

rglullis · 2025-03-16T16:03:06 1742140986

Having a FOSS alternative allows you to share the R&D costs with other interested parties.

At the very least, it works as a bargaining chip when it comes to negotiating contracts with the private sector.

semi-extrinsic · 2025-03-17T05:48:57 1742190537

If that's true in a large organization, how do SaaS companies actually make a profit?

If you develop an in-house tool, you have very predictable user numbers so you can go on-prem versus cloud for the compute and save ~10x on that side.

You also have the benefit of being second, the other guys already did the hard work of UX research etc. and your in-house team just needs to replicate a slightly complicated CRUD app.

The one significant roadblock I can see is being able to put together the right team for the job. But cost-wise it has to be a no-brainer that in-house is cheaper.